16,300 to two, that’s the proportions of news stories about two of the more interesting stories in corporate venturing this past one. The majority of media focus has been on search engine provider Google’s planned acquisition of Motorola Mobility, with 8,150 times fewer stories about China-based biotechnology firm 3SBio setting up a corporate venturing fund.
There is certainly plenty to discuss about Google’s planned acquisition of the consumer mobile phones maker with its patents portfolio, although it is a little early to divine what it might mean for the two groups’ corporate venturing teams. There is, however, little to say Google Ventures will turn away from backing more than 50 of seed and early-stage rounds for entrepreneurs judging by our news story out tomorrow.
But 3SBio’s formation of a corporate venturing fund is also interesting. With the backing of China’s three main health ministries through the Taizhou Oriental investment management company as well as the biotech firm, the RMB250m ($40m) 3SBio Ventures fund is the latest sign of the importance the country is placing on becoming a leader in healthcare.
As with India with its Ayurvedic tradition of medicine, Chinese companies could develop some interesting treatments and preventative work by combining its historic traditions of identifying disharmonies with western scientific practices.
One managing director of a corporate venturing firm sponsored by a western healthcare parent said the level of state support and the creation of what is probably the first Chinese peer in the sector created both an opportunity and threat to US medical centres in San Francisco and Boston, as well as in Europe around Switzerland and Cambridge.
Corporate venturing units have been sometimes reluctant to invest in innovative Chinese medical companies, although a number, such as Eli Lilly, Fidelity and Siemens, have reaped some strong financial and strategic benefits from a number of clinical research outsourcing and med-tech deals.
Question marks remain for some foreign units about the level of intellectual property and property protection in China, as well as the ability to exit deals and take money out of the country. But for domestic teams there is enormous state incentives to both become more innovative themselves and play a part in helping others grow and build an ecosystem, which in China is being sited in Taizhou city, part of the Jiangsu province on the Yangtze river between Nanjing and Shanghai.