The Asia deals landscape & building U.K.’s biotech hub — a BioCentury podcast

Plus: new VC funds from Omega Funds and Brandon Capital, FDA’s new voucher pilot and fallout from Sarepta gene therapies

This week’s deal between GSK and Jiangsu Hengrui is a prime example of how Western biopharmas have begun to recognize the innovation and opportunities being fostered in China — and how it’s no longer all about fast followers.

On the latest BioCentury This Week podcast, BioCentury’s analysts put the collaboration between GSK plc (LSE:GSK; NYSE:GSK) and Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd. (Shanghai:600276), two of the most active cross-border dealmakers, into the context of East-West dealmaking over the past 30 months, assessing the innovation that is driving the rush to partner with biotechs in China, Japan, South Korea and beyond, and the types of companies looking to Asia for assets.

BioCentury’s analysts also discuss Steve Bates’ outsized role in building the U.K. biotech hub, as he readies to take on a new role in the U.K. government. They examine new VC funds from Omega Funds and Brandon Capital, FDA’s new national priority voucher pilot program, and fallout from how FDA and  Sarepta Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:SRPT) handled the deaths of four patients who had received the biotech’s gene therapies.