According to market news, Suzhou Basecare Medical Corporation Limited (“Basecare”) has passed HKEX listing hearing and plans to raise a total of up to UD$250 million, equivalent toHK$ 1.95 billion on the Hong Kong Main Board by issuing H shares. According to Post hearing information pack (“PHIP”), Basecare is a unicorn company that provides genetic testing solutions for Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART) in China. It is also the first company in China that has Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) product lines covering the whole reproduction cycle.
Public information shows that PGT-A kit from Basecare, which screens for aneuploidy, a chromosomal disorder frequently associated with implantation failure in vitro fertilization, or IVF, in embryos prior to implantation, is the first and only third-generation IVF genetic test kit approved by the NMPA. The NMPA registration of the PGT-A kit, in February 2020, as a Class III “innovative medical device”, marked the birth of a regulated third-generation IVF market in China. To date, Basecare is the only approved kit maker in China.
In addition, Basecare is developing another two pre-implantation genetic testing kits, named PGT-M and PGT-SR, which, together with the PGT-A kit, would form a complete test kit lineup to occupy the PGT field based on NGS. It’s expected that Basecare would obtain NMPA registration approval for these two kits in 2022 and 2024, respectively, through which Basecare would further dominant the PGT reagent market in China, far ahead of potential competitors.
According to statistics from the National Health Commission, one in every six couples in China had experienced childbearing difficulties in 2019. The total number of Chinese ART cycles (800,000 cycles) was more than double that in the United States. China is undoubtedly the largest ART market in the world. However, the average pregnancy successful rate in China’s IVF is less than 50%. This means an infertile couple need to experience recurrent implantation failure 2.5 times and 2 years to have a live birth. The biggest clinical problem is that it is difficult to accurately confirm whether an embryo is viable before its implantation.
The genetic testing products developed by Basecare are designed to solve this clinical problem. Through accurate screening of the whole genome for each embryo, it can effectively help infertile couples give birth to a healthy child. After 4 years multi-center clinical trial in scale, the PGT-A kit is able to increase the IVF success rate to 72% and reduce the miscarriage rate to 6.9%, which is of great significance and value in the clinic. This achievement has not only filled in gaps in the third-generation IVF genetic test kit market in China, but also create new tracks in ART genetic testing market, indicating a significant progress in China’s third-generation IVF genetic testing filed and the birth of a new ART genetic testing market.
In the field of reproductive health, the PGT-Aregistration certificate is the second certificate based on NGSafter the NIPT registration certificate. The listed genetic testing companies, such as BGI and Berrygenomics, have successfully entered a period of rapid development with the advantage of the NIPT industry in the early stage. After being listed, BGI’s market cap reached $15.38 billion, and Berrygenomics also reached $1.54 billion after back door listing. Moreover, JINXIN Fertility, which was the first ART company listed on HKEX, has achieved encouraging progress in ART business after completing its global offering. With its market cap reaching more than $5 billion, it successfully drawed capital market’s attention to ART. Basecare is expected to become the first NGS genetic testing company on HKEX, and has already been invested by series of investors. It is reported that Basecare has conducted 4 rounds of financing before listing and in July 2020, Hillhouse Capital and OrbiMed became its shareholders through Series D Financing. Hillhouse Capital currently holds 6.82% of the company’s total shares.
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