ShangPharma eyes biologics, cGMP to build on ’10 growth

29-Nov-2010 - Last updated on 29-Nov-2010 at 10:50 GMT

ShangPharma expects its cGMP production site, due to open in 2011, and biologics services to drive growth as it builds on a 17 per cent increase in revenues in the third quarter.

Net revenues in the third quarter totalled $23.1m (€17.5m), up year-on-year from $19.8m, and this growth underpinned a 5 per cent increase in operating income. Posting operating income of $3.1m took the total for the first nine months of 2010 to $9.5m, a year-on-year rise of 25 per cent.

China-based ShangPharma now expects full year net revenues to be $89.6m to $91.1m, an increase of 24 to 26 per cent over fiscal 2009. This underpins similar growth in gross profit, which is expected to be around $30m.

Building post-IPO

Despite this growth ShangPharma has seen its share price fall since completing its initial public offering (IPO) in October. The IPO was priced at $15 a share but at the close of trading on November 26 its share price was $11.72.

To drive further growth ShangPharma is investing some of the IPO proceeds into a multi-purpose current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) facility in Fengxian, Shanghai, China. Addition of research manufacturing capabilities will join biologics services as an additional revenue stream.

Having added biologics services ShangPharma has initiated projects and expects to see strong demand in coming quarters, said Michael Xin Hui, founder and CEO of the company.

Genzyme award

Shanghai ChemPartner, the wholly-owned contract research organisation (CRO) subsidiary of ShangPharma, has received an award of excellence from Genzyme. The award is recognition of the achievements of the ChemPartner-Genzyme over the past three years.

“ChemPartner has proven its capabilities and effectiveness during almost three years of working with us and has become our preferred choice for a chemistry CRO", said Jim Burns, senior vice president of drug and biomaterial discovery and development at Genzyme.