WuXi to create $200m investment fund following initial success
The new $200m venture fund, known as WuXi Healthcare Ventures II and outlined in a SEC filing, will be four times as large as a previous $50m fund that has already made gains for the busy company.
With an initial focus on technology and life-science companies, the first WuXi fund from 2011, as of December 31, 2014, made $36.1m in investments, including $32.5m for biopharma companies and industry funds of $3.6m. WuXi says it has already “realized $23.6m in gains from three portfolio companies into which we had made $7m of investments.”
Investment activities at the fund are overseen primarily by Edward Hu, CFO and Chief Investment Officer, with the assistance of a group of investment professionals and Ge Li, Chairman, CEO and Founder of WuXi, the company said in a SEC filing.
“In addition to providing favorable investment returns, our corporate venture fund has allowed us to monitor developments in the life-sciences industry and has provided opportunities for us to successfully market our services to a range of potential customers. Many of our portfolio companies have used WuXi’s drug discovery and development services,” the company said.
The opportunity for outside investments comes as the company is investing internally too. Last week, WuXi announced it raised $80m for its small molecule manufacturing subsidiary, which offers intermediates and APIs (active pharmaceutical ingredients) for clients. The company has also begun construction on what is expected to be the largest mammalian cell culture manufacturing site in the world and will be complete by 2017.