If you are not familiar with the buy out earlier this year, check out the 2 links below to get up to date. It appears Sanofi sees an advantage here with getting clinical 
trials done overseas versus here in the US. We all know that diminishing clinical trials in the US are a big concern.
WuXi To Benefit from Global Outsourcing – China
Charles River Announces Plans to Acquire WuXi AppTec in Shanghai China
“WuXi AppTec is a leading drug research and development outsourcing company with significant expertise in discovery chemistry. It was established in 2000 and has steadily grown to more than 4,000 employees with operations in China and the United States. Together with Charles River, a leading global provider of both research models and associated services as well as preclinical drug development services, the combined company will have 12,000 employees, providing unparalleled support for your early-stage drug development needs.”
It appears in reading this business story here that there are a few folks going to cash in pretty big and the movement of developing their pipeline rests on contracts in China with clinical trials and data used by the FDA here on those results. Does this make one start to wonder also why US health insurance companies are buying up Chinese Gateway companies to facilitate getting Chinese drugs/and devices to the US? Give that one some thought as all the businesses are enter twining for 
profits.
I3 customers will be given expertise in over seeing clinical trials licenses, etc. and assistance getting through regulatory processes, like the FDA. ChinaGate is located in Shanghai, China . United has been very outspoken on keeping cost down so this appears to be an acquisition not only for facilitating clinical trials but also as an arm to oversee getting products, drugs and medical devices through the US FDA and the European CE market requirements.
In case you missed the connection I3 is a subsidiary of Ingenix, a subsidiary of United Healthcare and you can see their interest with their I3 subsidiary who markets and oversees clinical trials, I am trying to connect the dots here to help all of us understand where business it taking place today. Under a subsidiary name it’s easy not to recognize the efforts of insurance companies and all their investments outside of just paying healthcare claims. BD
Ivor Royston is catching the opera tonight in Paris, and he has some reason to relax. The managing partner of San Diego’s Forward Ventures was in France as the press release hit the wire announcing his portfolio company, TargeGen, has been acquired by Paris-based drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis for as much as $560 million.
This deal, like many other acquisitions we’ve seen lately, will take time to prove its ultimate value rather than traditional deals that provide a one-time windfall. TargeGen’s investors will get a $75 million upfront payment and the total deal could be worth $560 million if TargeGen can hit a series of
regulatory milestones, Royston says. Those milestones are key for determining just how successful TargeGen will be financially, since it has raised $118 million since its founding in 2001, according to CEO Peter Ulrich. The group of investors includes another San Diego firm, Enterprise Partners Venture Capital.
TargeGen has 11 employees in San Diego, and their roles with Sanofi-Aventis are still to be determined, Ulrich says. Both he and Royston reminded me of a story Bruce wrote here in March about how TargeGen was able to discover its lead drug candidate, TG101348, in-house, and was able to bring it into clinical trials in 18 months with the help of a China-based contract research organization, WuXi Pharmatech
