October 10, 2017
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
BEIJING – Former GlaxoSmithKline pharmaceuticals and vaccines head Abbas Hussain has resurfaced as a senior partner of C-Bridge Capital, a private equity firm based in China since his departure from the London-based pharma giant.
Hussain will bring more than 25 years of experience to the equity firm that is focused on development and late-stage investment opportunities within the growing Chinese health care market. The company has $700 million in assets under management. In touting Hussain Fu Wei, chief executive officer of C- Bridge Capital, said the company is focused on identifying emerging industry leaders across biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and in vitro diagnostics to bring global innovation into China.”
Hussain spent eight years at GSK and was being considered as a potential replacement for Sir Andrew Witty, the former chief executive officer of the pharma giant. After Emma Walmsley was tapped to helm the London-based GSK, Hussain announced his intention to leave the company. During Abbas’ time at GlaxoSmithKline, he also was a member of the Corporate Executive Team, a Non-Executive Director of ViiV Healthcare, a member of Aspen Pharma care board (the largest South African pharmaceutical company), and he was on the board of the Duke and National University of Singapore Medical school.
Hussain is part of a team that was tapped to not only build out the company’s presence in the Chinese market, but also in the United States. In addition to Hussain C-Bridge tapped:
• Sean Cao, former head of business development at Simcere Pharmaceuticals Group. He will serve as managing director in the Boston office.
• Jason Brown serves as managing director in the San Diego office.
• Michael Keyong, former CEO of Genexine, is the managing director of the New York City office.
• Zhang Tong, the former head of corporate development at Wuxi AppTec in Shanghai, also joins as a managing director of the New York office.
During his time at GSK, Hussain oversaw a significant commercial increase of the pharmaceutical and vaccine division. At the end of 2016, new pharmaceutical sales represented 25 percent of total pharmaceutical sales, GSK said when the company announced Hussain was departing. The company said Hussain “built the world’s leading emerging markets pharmaceuticals business by volume, and implemented a flexible approach to pricing across developing countries.” Additionally Endpoints News’ John Carroll noted that Hussain played a big role in “cleaning up” a bribery scandal in China that resulted a $500 million fine for GSK.
China is playing an increasing role in the global pharma market. Oncology is a primary issue in the Chinese healthcare market. According to the American Cancer Society, there were approximately 4.3 million new diagnoses of cancer in China in 2015, along with about 2.8 million cancer-related deaths. Cancer is considered the leading cause of death in China, according to the society’s information. The five leading causes of cancer death among both men and women in China are cancers of the lung and bronchus, stomach, liver, esophagus, and colorectum, accounting for about three-quarters of all cancer deaths, the American Cancer Society said. There are about 200,000 lung cancer patients diagnosed in the U.S. each year, but in China, there are about 700,000 new patients, which is a large patient pool.
In 2016, Juno Pharmaceuticals partnered with WuXi AppTec, an open-access R&D capability and technology platform company, to form a new Chinese company called JW Biotechnology Co., Ltd.
