@JDragon What previously seems like a win for Fosun is now a bust, because they didn't factor in the CCP's political angle when
making the deal with BioNTech last year for the exclusive right to produce/distribute BioNTech's mRNA vaccines in China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.
Fosun thought they would be making banks, but Beijing now simply pretend that their application for approval (filed over a year ago) doesn't exists, while pushing for a domestic mRNA vaccine backed by the Chinese military, one that's totally not
"untested and dangerous" like the German mRNA "human experiment" that the CCP's official English-language mouthpiece
Global Times spent a year spreading all kinds of rumors about (much of which were promptly swallowed whole by the ignorant anti-vaxxers on Sherdog).
Fosun’s Bet on BioNTech Vaccine for China Fails to Pay Off
Bloomberg News | December 12, 2021
Guo Guangchang
As Covid-19 started spreading in Wuhan early last year, Chinese billionaire Guo Guangchang’s drugmaker appeared to have scored a big win: A partnership with Germany’s BioNTech SE, which went on to produce with Pfizer Inc. one of the world’s most successful vaccines against the coronavirus.
Yet almost a year later, the shot is yet to be approved in mainland China, and in recent weeks Beijing has thrown its heft behind a
homegrown mRNA vaccine, allowing China’s Walvax Biotechnology Co. to test its own experimental shot as a booster. The developments are raising new questions about whether the U.S.-German vaccine, licensed for the potentially lucrative Greater China region by Guo’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co., will ever be used on the mainland, where President Xi Jinping’s administration has backed a nationalist agenda on all fronts, including in the
fight against the virus.
The delayed approval is the latest sign of how vulnerable Chinese tycoons -- and their foreign partners -- are to Beijing’s political dictats. It also highlights the uncertain outlook for global drugmakers in China, the world’s second biggest pharmaceutical market and a big one for Covid-19 products. More than 1 billion Chinese have been inoculated with the traditional shots made by Sinovac Ltd. and Sinopharm Group even though they have been found to be less effective than mRNA ones in scientific studies.
It’s hard to tell when, if ever, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will be approved for mainland China since regulators haven’t publicly said why it’s being held back, analysts say.
The Chinese market could fall out of reach for international pharmaceutical firms if approvals for vaccines and medicines intended for Covid are made “a political issue, rather than an economic or biological one.” said Zhao Bing, a senior analyst who oversees health-care research at China Renaissance Securities HK Ltd. Given the domestic competition, the prospects in China for the shot may be limited even if it is eventually approved for use in the mainland, he said.
“How much market share can Fosun grab?” said Zhao.“I don’t know, but it’s certainly not looking optimistic.”
The uncertainty is a blow to the ambitions of Guo, 54, who in recent years has increasingly made health care a key area of focus for his conglomerate. Fosun Pharma’s shares are now more than 40% below their August high. Guo’s own net worth, meanwhile, has plunged to $3.5 billion from this year’s peak of $4.6 billion amid the selloff and as China’s economic slowdown and intermittent Covid resurgences have hurt the retail and tourism arms of his conglomerate, Fosun International Ltd.
In an emailed response to questions, Fosun Pharma said its collaboration with BioNTech “has always been supported by relevant regulatory authorities.” The clinical trials and approval process are progressing in accordance with China’s laws, the company said.
Still, the shot has already been widely approved around the world for months. Pfizer -- which has the rights to market it outside of Fosun’s distribution area of mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau -- is pulling in billions in revenue from the vaccine. While Fosun has sold it in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Macau, where it’s been green-lit by regulators, a BioNTech representative said the application for the vaccine’s use on the mainland is still ongoing.
China’s regulator, the National Medical Products Administration and the State Council Information Office didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Fosun was required to pay 125 million euros ($141 million) to BioNTech before the end of 2020 as an initial payment to secure 100 million doses for mainland China in 2021. Some of those shots -- with labels featuring the vaccine’s brand name in simplified Chinese -- eventually reached Taiwan as donations from its local chipmaking giants and charities, who purchased them from Fosun.
Meanwhile, Fosun also agreed to invest $100 million in a joint venture with BioNTech to manufacture the vaccine in China. The plant, once completed with technology transfers and manufacturing know-how from BioNTech, was supposed to churn out 1 billion doses of the shot annually. But the JV isn’t currently operating with doses for region coming from BioNTech’s plant in Germany.
The vaccine setback comes at a time when China has curbed the ascent of some of its most powerful tycoons, derailing the IPO of Jack Ma’s Ant Financial and placing restrictions on the gaming business of Pony Ma’s Tencent Holdings Ltd. In the pharmaceutical space, Chinese leaders now appear eager to prove the country’s prowess at vaccine-making, encouraging sales of local shots around the world as a way of increasing Beijing’s geopolitical heft.
Walvax’s shot, being co-developed with local biotech Suzhou Abogen Biosciences Co. and the Chinese military, is now being tested in final-stage trials in countries including Mexico and Indonesia, and the results are expected as soon as the end of this year.
“China doesn’t have an mRNA vaccine right now. When it does, it’d better be a domestic one, so that it shows the country is just as capable of pulling it off,” said Mia He, senior health-care analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-on-pfizer-vaccine-for-china-fails-to-pay-off