A Hong Kong IPO will make one of the world’s richest biopharma families

China’s Hansoh Pharmaceutical is slated to go public in Hong Kong on Friday. The HK$7.86 billion ($1 billion) raise puts it among the largest IPOs on the exchange this year. But perhaps what’s more interesting is how the market value will create one of the world’s wealthiest biopharma families. The IPO values Hansoh at $10.4 billion, and with a 68% stake, its founder, chairwoman and CEO, Zhong Huijuan, will be worth $7.9 billion, according to Bloomberg. But her husband’s company, Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine, is perhaps better known in the Western world. The Shanghai-listed anticancer drugmaker has given Zhong’s husband Sun Piaoyang, who holds about one-fourth of equity interest, a $9.3 billion stake. Combined, they sit among the world’s richest biopharma families, beating out the Sacklers of Purdue Pharma, whose fortune in 2016 totaled around $14 billion by Forbes’ estimate before their opioid fallout. Both Hansoh and Hengrui have benefited from China’s fast-growing drug industry. Healthcare expenditure in China increased to 5.87 trillion yuan in 2018 ($848 billion) from 3.53 trillion yuan ($510 billion) in 2014, and it's expected to reach 9.35 trillion yuan ($1.35 trillion) in 2023, Hansoh said in its prospectus, citing data from the Chinese government.

Spotlight

Spotlight

Related News