Sinopharm to inject 30b yuan assets into Beijing Tiantan Biological Products

Chinese state-owned Sinopharm plans to inject 30 billion yuan (US$4.6 billion) in assets into unit Beijing Tiantan Biological Products to quickly get its fast-growing vaccine business on the public market, two people told Reuters.

Sinopharm aims to begin the injection of six vaccine-focused biological products developers including makers of two coronavirus vaccines into Shanghai-listed Tiantan in the coming weeks, said the people plus two other people with knowledge of the matter.-

In January, Reuters reported that a Sinopharm-led consortium planned to take private China Traditional Chinese Medicine Holdings as the unit lagged a surge in valuation for many mainland China-listed peers.

Injecting six units into Tiantan could diversify fundraising channels, the people said. The six are either wholly owned or controlled by Sinopharm subsidiary China National Biotec Group Co. CNBG also owns 50 percent of Tiantan, which focuses on blood products and had a market capitalisation of US$7 billion Thursday.

Sinopharm - formally China National Pharmaceutical Group Co - Tiantan and CNBG did not respond to requests for to comment. The people declined to be identified due to confidentiality constraints.

The six units Sinopharm aims to inject into Tiantan develop and manufacture a range of vaccines including two for coronavirus disease as well as injectable cosmetic Botox, their websites showed.

One of the two coronavirus vaccines, developed in Beijing, was the first approved for general public use in China in December, and has since gained emergency use approval in countries such as Iraq and Morocco. The unit can produce 1 billion doses annually. The second, developed in Wuhan where capacity is 100 million does a year, gained Chinese public use approval in February.

In all, five domestically produced coronavirus vaccines have been approved for use in China.

The other four Sinopharm units in the deal are based in the cities of Shanghai, Lanzhou, Changchun and Chengdu, Sinopharm's website showed.-Photo: Kyodo