Boehringer Ingelheim is bidding adieu to its biologics contract manufacturing unit in China, inking a small-scale deal that gives local developer Raas Blood Products an established production base for its lead antibody drug candidate.
Shanghai-based Raas has revealed in a financial disclosure (Chinese) that it’s offering up to 20 million Chinese yuan (around $3 million) to secure a 100% stake in Boehringer Ingelheim Biopharmaceuticals in China. The business has a registered capital of $66 million, which represents the amount of investment that shareholders have put into the company.
A local unit of Germany-based pharma Boehringer Ingelheim, the BI biopharmaceuticals business was forged in 2014—also in Shanghai—to establish a production outpost in China, where it primarily engages in contract development and manufacturing of biologic drugs.
This work spans clinical production through to commercial projects, with the unit also providing services like chemistry, manufacturing and controls registration support, analytics development and validation to both global and domestic Chinese customers, Raas explained in its filing.
In its disclosure, Raas noted that the local unit possesses a contract manufacturing facility with commercial production capacity of 6,000 liters.
The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2027, a Boehringer Ingelheim spokesperson told Fierce over email. Until then, Boehringer will remain in charge of the CDMO unit.
Prior to this week's transaction, Raas and Boehringer's China biologics unit had entered into a pact in 2024, which saw the German drugmaker provide process transfer and clinical manufacturing services for Raas' hemophilia asset, the spokesperson added.
"This deal will enable the state-of-art biopharma manufacturing facility to continuously supply high-quality products," the Boehringer Ingelheim representative continued. "This site will become a core asset supporting Shanghai RAAS’s innovative drug research, development, and manufacturing efforts, while the team of the site will also help enhance Shanghai RAAS’s global innovation capabilities."
The BI unit also holds a drug manufacturing license from the Shanghai Municipal Drug Administration, not to mention industrialization capabilities and a “mature and stable technical team.” The unit represents “a rare large-molecule biopharmaceutical manufacturing platform in China,” Raas said in its disclosure, according to a translation.
The Boehringer unit makes for a prime acquisition target given that it suffered losses in 2024, 2025 and the first quarter of 2026, Raas added.
The unit specifically reported a net loss of 16.8 million yuan (around $2.5 million) in Q1 and a net loss of 259 million yuan ($38.5 million) for all of 2025, according to Raas, as the Boehringer subsidiary has struggled to compete with local CDMO players like WuXi Biologics.
As for Raas, the company has also struggled locally on declining blood product sales, according to local business news outlet, Yicai.
With the acquisition, Raas now says it’s aiming to “address the shortcomings in the industrialization of innovative drugs,” with specific plans to use the BI unit’s capacity, quality control system and other resources to “ensure the timely and stable production and launch” of its lead asset SR604, plus other experimental medicines further down its pipeline.
SR604 is a monoclonal antibody candidate—the world’s first to target activated protein C for hemophilia, according to Raas—which the company is developing for both the A and B types of the genetic blood clotting disorder.
Raas noted that preparations for its phase 3 program for SR604 are now “progressing steadily,” and the company is also working to enroll a midstage study of the asset to treat bleeding episodes in patients with von Willebrand disease. Beyond that asset, Raas noted that it’s developing other candidates that focus primarily on coagulation and inflammatory diseases.
Boehringer is striking the relatively meager transaction as its overall business performs steadily, with the company recently reporting a 12% revenue jump in the first half of 2026, fueled in large part by U.S. demand for its diabetes and heart failure medicine Jardiance.
With the unit sale, the company "remains steadfast in its commitment to China," the Boehringer Ingelheim spokesperson said.
"We are increasing our investments in R&D and will establish a new human pharma R&D center in Shanghai. In addition, we will continue to expand and upgrade the capacity of our human pharma NCE production site (BISPL) in Shanghai and animal health manufacturing facilities in Nanchang and Taizhou, to bring more innovative treatment options to patients and animals in China."
Editor's note: This story has been updated with a statement from Boehringer Ingelheim.