Author: Northwest Choking In January 2008, when WuXi AppTec, which was marketed in the United States, released a blockbuster news to 1$5.1 billion pure cash acquisition of Apptec Corporation in the United States.
At that time, WuXi AppTec had just been listed in the United States, with a total market capitalization of 17700 million US dollars, about 200 million US dollars in cash, a wholly-owned acquisition is still a bit difficult. However, WuXi AppTec obviously attaches great importance to this acquisition, and one of the signs is that WuXi AppTec has changed its English abbreviation after the completion of the acquisitionChanged from wuxi to wuxi apptecIt stands to reason that after the completion of this kind of acquisition, the name of the opponent will not be retained. WuXi AppTec not only made the acquisition look like a merger, but also because the original company was abbreviated as Wuxi, so after adding it, it seems to have become Apptec's Wuxi subsidiary.
WuXi AppTec doesn't seem to care about being demoted by a generation, and likes the name a lot, and has kept it until now. 
In 2007, WuXi AppTec was listed on the New York Stock Exchange under the name of WX).
Objectively speaking, it is not a loss to bear the name of Apptec. First, Apptec is not weak, mainly engaged in biological drugs and medical devices CRO, has a large number of customers in the United States. In 2007, Apptec's revenue was 70 million US dollars, and WuXi AppTec's market value was more than 10 times that of others, and its revenue that year was only 1$3.5 billion.
At that time, Apptec also had an advantage that Li Ge could not refuse: the company had branches in Philadelphia, São Paulo and Atlanta. In 2001, Li Ge returned to China from the United States to start a business, and in six or seven years, he laid the foundation for two R&D centers in Waigaoqiao and Tianjin in Shanghai and a CDMO production base in Jinshan, Shanghai.
The acquisition of Apptec was a key step for Li Ge to regain his feet on American soil. From day one of WuXi AppTec's founding, Li Ge planned to do global (mainly American) business. In 2008, Covance, a well-known CRO company, planned to set up a joint venture company with WuXi AppTec in Suzhou, but the two sides did not reach an agreement, reportedly because Covance wanted the joint venture to mainly take over business in China, and WuXi AppTec insisted that the new company must be global (the United States).
What did China's pharmaceutical industry look like in 2008? How much business can I do? Li Ge knew it very well; Even now, 15 years later, WuXi AppTec's revenue from the Chinese market is less than 20%. Summed up in the past ten years, the CRO industry,Only American money is best earned.
Li Ge has been firm in this plan from the beginning, but it's a pity that people are not as good as heaven. Shortly after WuXi AppTec's success in 2008, the global financial crisis quietly came, and foreign pharmaceutical companies cut R&D investment, and Apptec's business plummeted. Li Ge did not make a fortune in a muffled voice, but suffered a dumb loss.
The most direct result of this financial crisis on the pharmaceutical industry is that a large number of Chinese scientists have lost their jobs or lost their usefulness. Some of these scientists have returned to China one after another, bringing the advanced technology mastered in the United States to create a round of great prosperity in China's innovative drug industry. Of course, that's all for later. At that time, WuXi AppTec was seriously affected, and pharmaceutical companies had no R&D expenses, and CROs could not make money. In 2010, Li Ge made up his mind to sell WuXi AppTec for $1.6 billion** to Charles River, a company known for its animal models.
Li Ge does not think that this is his own sale of the company, but thinks that it is the complementarity of WuXi AppTec and Charles River. At that time, the CRO industry did more preclinical and clinical services, and could get 40% of the total R&D investment of large pharmaceutical companies; WuXi AppTec's early-stage R&D services account for only 8% of pharmaceutical companies' R&D investment. Charles River also does the clinical front-end, and after the merger of the two, Charles River can administer drug Ming to more American customers, which is what Li Ge thinks. The question of how much WuXi AppTec sells is secondary, mainly because it wants to maintain and expand WuXi AppTec's business in the United States through Charles River.
Moreover, mergers and acquisitions in the CRO industry are common, and most companies do not cherish the false name of independent companies. For example, the aforementioned Covance was acquired by Laibo, and Quintiles and Aimis merged and renamed IQVIA. Wuxi Apptec's acquisition by Charles River is also not a big dealI just don't know if the new company will be called Wuxi Charles River.
Fortunately, Charles River did not have enough cash at the time, and the deal was finally aborted, otherwise there would not be today's horizontal and vertically integrated large CXO group WuXi across chemical drugs, biologics, ADCs, and CGTs. It can be seen that in the past 20 years, WuXi AppTec has not deviated from its original intention, firmly rooted in the U.S. market, which has the largest business volume in the world, and has achieved today's results.
Unexpectedly, such a company that insists on in China for world (America) will be completely hit by the United States in early 2024. There is no need to repeat the content of the so-called proposal, the level at which Americans write proposals is not much higher than that of Da V, and it is really not worth refuting the accusations by dragging a few arguments to confirm the accusations.
But the fact that Wuxi Apptec can be listed as a proposal speaks for itself. Over the past 20 years, Li Ge has continued to work hard to lead WuXi to reach the fourth place in the world in terms of total performance. The first in line, LaBlog, IQVIA, and Thermo Fisher Scientific have all been formed through large-scale mergers, and only WuXi is constantly dismantled.
To say that WuXi is to split the financing circle is the view of the capital market. In terms of business, WuXi AppTec, WuXi Biologics, and WuXi XDC ......These companies have been clarifying their relationship with each other. I'm afraid I'm afraid of being targeted. 
Excerpt from the Rubik's Cube of Medicine, but the wealth of WuXi is still noticed. According to the 2022 financial report, the gross profit margin of WuXi AppTec's core chemical business is as high as 40%, while the gross profit margin of Charles River, which is considered to be closest to WuXi AppTec in the industry, is 36%; The gross margin of the DD business, which is relatively close, is only 14%. The secret of WuXi AppTec,It's China's lower costs
Until now, WuXi AppTec's overseas revenue accounts for 81%, and it has 26 bases around the world, with nearly 45,000 employees, but the number of overseas employees is less than 5%, and its business is mainly absorbed by China at low cost. WuXi has to do business in the U.S., and it has to do business in China, otherwise it wouldn't be where it is today. This determines that once there is a problem, WuXi companies are caught in the middle, and they are not people. Today it may be the so-called Biosafety Act, and tomorrow there will be other contradictions.
In its rating of WuXi AppTec in October last year, Fitch warned that WuXi AppTec's US and European customers accounted for 66% and 12% of the company's total revenue in the first half of 2023, and the risk exposure was too high, and any regulatory pressure could affect the business. It is now difficult to evaluate WuXi AppTec in traditional ways such as PE valuation, performance expectations, and projects in hand.
American scientist Li Ge may have to think more about how to move business entities outside of China, as he did last year when he planned to build a base in Singapore. Or, as Charles River did more than 10 years ago, seeking to find an American "partner."