Covid-19 & Biotech in Hong Kong

​The global Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted government policy, healthcare and biotech into the spotlight. Individual governments have struggled with how to manage this unprecedented challenges, at the sometime the pandemic highlighted both healthcare and biotech players into the spotlight. Scientific community across both the developing and developed nation came together to work to provide solutions both preventive and therapeutic to the challenge presented by COVID-19. Globally we have seen a vast sums of money invested both privately and by governments which led to collaboration both scientifically and in manufacturing, and new frameworks developed such that there are 61 vaccines in clinical development and 172 in pre-clinical development.

Hong Kong saw 23 healthcare companies list in HK raising a total of HK$98, billion, including 14 prerevenue companies listed under Chapter 18A which together raised a total of HK$40 billion. The majority of the companies which listed under Chapter 18A were in the oncology and autoimmune sector, where there has been large scale investment from the Chinese private equity funds, including one company Occumension list in the eye space which was well received by the market!

The development and increased acceptance of HKEX as a  leading exchange for innovative biotech companies is good as it brings depth and breadth to HK capital markets and will have trickle down effect to the entire healthcare ecosystem. We have seen a surge in pre IPO funding in biotech companies and more funds raised to invest in the broader healthcare market which will have a trickle down effect into the entire ecosystem.

Covid-19 has also also accelerated several trends that were already in existence - digitisation, diagnostics at point of care, telehealth and non invasive treatments and regulatory pathways that need to be streamlined such that cutting edge solutions can be brought to the market more efficiently.