(Yicai) May 16 -- Beijing HC-Innovation Tech, Shenzhen Genocury Biotech and several other Chinese biopharmaceutical startups have raked in substantial sums in financing recently, as the country’s primary market, which is the sale of newly issued securities, recovers.

Beijing HC-Innovation Tech secured nearly CNY100 million (USD13.8 million) in Series B+ financing, boosting the biosecurity intelligent management service provider’s valuation to CNY1 billion (USD138 million). Participants included Beijing E-Town International Investment & Development and Yunzhou Capital.

Shenzhen Genocury Biotech bagged tens of millions of Chinese yuan, equivalent to millions of US dollars, in Angel+ round financing from sole investor Tianjin Venture Capital.

Fosun Health Holdings, a subsidiary of Fosun Pharma, secured a CNY300 million investment from Foshan Chanxi Urban Investment. This amounted to Foshan Chanxi subscribing to an additional registered capital of CNY156 million when based on Fosun Health’s pre-investment value of CNY10.2 billion (USD1.4 billion).

Financing for the pharmaceutical and biotech sectors has slumped the last two years, said Cheng Hao, partner at WisdoMont Asset Management. There were 1,911 investment and financing events in the medical and healthcare sector last year, a dive of 12.2 percent from a year earlier. And the amount raised narrowed 32.1 percent to CNY189.2 billion.

Some 39 pharmaceutical firms withdrew their IPO applications in 2023 as listing requirements were tightened. This made it more difficult for pharma and biotech companies to raise funds in the primary market, Cheng said.

Editor: Kim Taylor