Sidley advised Alphamab Oncology (HKEX: 9966) as the Hong Kong and U.S. legal adviser in its HK$1.83 billion (approximately US$234 million) initial public offering (IPO) listed on the Main Board of The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited. Morgan Stanley Asia Limited, CLSA Capital Markets Limited and Jefferies Hong Kong Limited are the joint sponsors in this transaction. Alphamab Oncology is a leading clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company in China with a fully integrated proprietary biologics platform in biospecifics and protein engineering.
In addition, Sidley also advised Alphamab Oncology on its Series A and Series B pre-IPO financings in December 2018 and May 2019 respectively, which highlighted Sidley’s comprehensive service capabilities.
The Sidley team was led by partner Mengyu Lu, with support from foreign legal consultant Oliver Zhong; associates Angela Zhang, Samantha Peng and Guanlin Wang; and China advisor Chuanwen Wang. Legal assistants Meiyi Li, Ru Jia, Xinyang Li and Kaiwen Xu and senior legal assistant Jingwen Dong also helped with this deal.
Since the launch of Hong Kong’s new listing regime in April 2018, Sidley is the only Hong Kong counsel which has advised on up to five Hong Kong IPO projects of biotech companies.* The firm has assisted Alphamab Oncology, Shanghai Henlius Biotech, Inc., Viva Biotech Holdings, CanSino Biologics Inc. and Ascletis Pharma Inc on their successful listings. As of the third quarter of 2019, Sidley ranks as the #1 legal adviser in the Hong Kong IPO league table by deal number.
* Source: RyanBen Capital, “Hong Kong: The World’s Second Largest Funding Hub for Biotech in 2019”