Bridge Pharmaceuticals Boosts China's Biotech Industry

Filed in archive Incubators and Science Parks on December 6, 2005

Washington, Silicon Valley and even the Treasury Department have been vigilantly watching China, wondering what would happen when the Sleeping Dragon finally took flight. Now that it has, even Bay Area venture capitalists have joined ranks and opened the Golden Gate as an instrumental bridge to China's increasing prosperity. It's no wonder that W.I Harper's Peter Liu, the Bay area's China rainmaker is arguably insuring that the Middle Kingdom meets its goal as one of the world's biotechnology leaders before the end of the decade.

Bridge Pharmaceuticals, spun off only a year ago by SRI International in Stanford University, and backed by an initial $3.5 million financing from WI Harper, is primarily focused on cost-effective development of FDA-compliant therapeutic drugs in Asia for the U.S. and E.U. markets.

Other investors include the YFY Group, Taiwan's Industrial Technology Research Institute; and the Development Center for Biotechnology, a Taiwan-based not-for-profit organization. SRI holds an 18 percent stake in Bridge.

Just a week ago, a delegation of some of San Francisco's prominent politicians, including the charismatic young Mayor Gavin Newsom, traveled to Beijing, along with Mr. Liu, to dedicate the company's recently completed Bridge Zhongguancun Preclinical Drug Development Laboratory. According to Red Herring, The Vital Bridge Zhongguancun Drug Development Laboratory is a joint venture between Bridge Pharmaceuticals, the Menlo Park, California-based contract research organization (CRO), and Vital Star, a subsidiary of the Beijing Laboratory Animal Research Center (BLARC).

Bridge holds a 65 percent stake in the lab, while Vital Star holds a 35 percent stake. Located in the Zhongguancun Life Sciences Park in the northern Beijing suburb of Changping, the facility will conduct animal testing for pharmaceutical industry clients.

With America's direct assistance in the form of technology development and fueled by venture funds, China is well on its way to realizing its Biotech development plans which include establishing 20 world-level research and development centers and 10 biotech centers with an annual output value in excess of $30 billion according to sources at the China Bio-engineering Development Center under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

There are some folks in Washington still wondering why Silicon Valley and Stanford University is helping China's develop these pillar industries? It was not that long ago that the US was playing catch up with Japan in biotechnology deals and development.