Viva Biotech and SYNthesis Enter Strategic Acquisition Agreement

Viva Biotech Co. Ltd. has agreed to acquire SYNthesis med chem Limited, at the consideration of approximately $80 million. The acquisition will achieve synergies between Viva Biotech and SYNthesis regarding to the CRO business in the global market, which is of great strategic significance for Viva Biotech to conduct vertical integration and establish a comprehensive one-stop drug services platform.

About the Companies

SYNthesis is a preclinical small molecule drug discovery service contract organization which mainly provides pharmaceutical chemistry and synthetic chemistry services to its clients. It is headquartered in Hong Kong, S.A.R., China and has service platforms in Suzhou, Shanghai and Australia. It generates revenue mainly from customers in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom. As of December 31, 2019, the company has more than 200 employees, and serves over 250 pharmaceutical companies and biopharmaceutical companies worldwide.

Viva Biotech operates a structure-based, integrated drug discovery platform, providing drug discovery services to biotechnology and pharmaceutical customers worldwide for their preclinical stage innovative drug development. As of June 30th, 2020, Viva Biotech has served 495 pharmaceutical customers worldwide. Viva Biotech says its mission is to become the cradle for promising biotechnology companies all around the world. The company has been continuously building up a comprehensive one-stop drug services platform though strategic collaborations and acquisitions.

"We are very delighted to achieve the strategic acquisition agreement with SYNthesis. We believe that SYNthesis's technical platform and international team in the field of pharmaceutical chemistry and synthetic chemistry will quickly strengthen the capabilities of Viva Biotech from early drug discovery service to drug R&D downstream business, as well as boost the company's downstream integration to CMC and CDMO fields. SYNthesis and Viva Biotech are going to form a good complementarity and broaden the diversity of customer groups," said Dr. Chen Cheny Mao, chairman and CEO of Viva Biotech. "Through the active layout and establishment of a comprehensive one-stop drug service platform, Viva Biotech will continue to be committed to providing more customers and portfolio companies with higher quality of the full stage service of innovative drug research and development."

Dr. Xianyong Bu, managing director of SYNthesis added, "I am thrilled and delighted to have my team at SYNthesis join forces with the Viva team. Our preclinical small molecule pharmaceutical chemistry platform will be organically combined with the structure-based drug discovery and bioassay platforms of Viva Biotech, to provide a comprehensive preclinical R&D services for more customers. Together we will become a force to be reckoned with in the high-end medicinal chemistry space."