Hillhouse-backed SMO Services Provider ClinPlus Files for IPO on GEM Board

Healthcare, Financials Author: Jizhen Huang Editor: Tao Ni May 07, 2022 08:58 PM (GMT+8)

Established in 2013, ClinPlus is an enterprise focusing on clinical trial site management services. Its customers include Hengrui, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Bayer, AbbVie and other well-known domestic and overseas pharmaceutical companies and medical device companies.

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Clinical trial site management organization (SMO) service provider ClinPlus (Chinese: 普蕊斯) opened IPO subscription for new shares yesterday. The company plans to issue 15 million shares on the Growth Enterprise Market under the stock code 301257 and at an offering price of CNY 46.80 (USD 7) per share. The upper limit of subscription for a single trading account is 15,000 shares. 

With a series of favorable policies, China’s innovative drug industry has gradually heated up. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies have gradually increased their investment in new drug R&D. 

According to media reports, ClinPlus is expected to become the first SMO company listed on the Chinese A-share market.

In the clinical trial stage, based on its rich project execution experience and complete quality management system, SMO can help pharmaceutical companies speed up the execution of clinical trials and improve the reliability of clinical trial data.

ClinPlus is an enterprise that provides customers with full-process SMO services. At present, it has established good cooperation with more than 730 clinical trial institutions and has promoted the debut of more than 80 innovative drugs or medical device products.

In terms of oncology drugs, from 2016 to the end of 2021, among the 81 new tumor drugs newly launched domestically, ClinPlus was responsible for 33, accounting for 40.74%. Among 12 newly released drugs of PD-1/PD-L1 monoclonal antibody, seven were developed by ClinPlus, representing 58.33%.

The prospectus shows that ClinPlus’ main business is SMO services, making up 100% of its operating income, which highlights the risk of a single business model. Moreover, the company lacks synergies with other businesses relative to peers from the same industry, which tend to operate CRO and CMO services in addition to SMO business. 

ClinPlus’ main competitors include IQVIA (NYSE: IQV), WuXi AppTec (603259, 2359:HK), TigerMed (300347, 3347:HK).