Anhui Anke Biotechnology (Group) Co., Ltd.

Visen Pharmaceuticals, a biotech developing much of Ascendis Pharma’s endocrine-related disease pipeline for the China market, will go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Friday. The company expects net proceeds of about 672 million HKD ($86.5 million) from the initial public offering, which will take place Friday local time or Thursday afternoon New York time, according to a regulatory filing . Investors in the IPO include AnkeBio, Suzhou Harvest, Vivo Capital and WuXi Biologics HealthCare Venture, among others, according to the filing. There have been few HKEX biopharma IPOs in recent quarters. A couple listing hopefuls have let their filings lapse after six months of no action, including Insilico Medicine, which went with a $110 million Series E instead. Duality Biologics, an ADC biotech partnered with multiple big-name drugmakers, let its HKEX IPO ambitions stall last month, but the Shanghai-based startup quickly refiled days later. Visen was approaching its own six-month deadline, having filed for the IPO last September. Ascendis formed Visen in 2018 and initially held onto 50% of the company. That stake gradually fell to about 40%, according to regulatory filings. Ascendis continued devoting capital to the joint venture, including an equity investment as part of Visen’s $150 million Series B in January 2021. Visen had raised about $190 million prior to the IPO, according to regulatory filings. It’s already used about 86% of those funds, per the documents. In addition to Ascendis, Visen’s other key pre-IPO investors are Vivo Capital (32.1%), Sofinnova Ventures (4.6%), HongShan Growth (3.6%), OrbiMed (1.6%) and Sherpa Healthcare Partners (1.6%), according to regulatory filings . Visen is working on assets licensed from Ascendis for pediatric growth hormone deficiency, achondroplasia and hypoparathyroidism. Ascendis has received European and FDA approvals for some of the medicines already. Denmark-based Ascendis has done other business development deals, including a Japan venture , spinning out its ophthalmology work and partnering with Novo Nordisk . Visen is led by CEO Pony Lu, who was previously president of Takeda’s China unit. He’s also been in leadership roles at Servier’s Taiwan, China and France units and AstraZeneca Taiwan.