When facing thousands of listed company announcements every day, which ones should you read? What are the key points to take away from the dozens or hundreds of pages of material announcements? Are the many professional terms in the announcements bullish or bearish? Check out Caixin's "Quick Read Announcement" column, where our reporters across the country will provide you with accurate, fast and professional interpretations on the night of the announcement.

According to Caixian News on January 6 (Reporter Lu Afrang), following WUXI APPTEC's sale of its WuXi ATU business in the USA and United Kingdom, WUXI BIO has also proceeded to divest its overseas Assets.

Today, WUXI BIO announced that it has reached an agreement with Merck (MSD International GmbH) for Merck to acquire WUXI BIO's wholly-owned subsidiary WUXI HIDE's vaccine factory in Ireland, with a total transaction amount of approximately 0.5 billion USD. The vaccine factory is still under construction.

The establishment of this vaccine factory is closely related to Merck. In February 2020, WUXI BIO announced that WUXI HIDE had established a strategic partnership with a 'global vaccine giant,' signing a 20-year vaccine production supply contract. According to the cooperation agreement at that time, WUXI HIDE would build a manufacturing and supply base in Ireland that integrates vaccine bulk production, formulation, process development, and quality control (QC) laboratory, specifically producing innovative vaccines for the global vaccine giant to supply the global market.

The announcement today indicates that this 'global vaccine giant' is indeed Merck, which also means that this factory, mainly providing vaccine contract manufacturing for Merck, has been directly sold to the 'party A.'

WUXI BIO Chairman Chen Zhisheng stated that since the Ireland vaccine factory was designed and built as a dedicated facility for producing commercial vaccine products for Merck to meet Merck's business needs, the asset transaction not only enables the company to monetize its previous investment in the Ireland vaccine factory but also enhances its asset efficiency and profit, allowing the company to focus on providing vaccine CDMO services to clients through its vaccine base located in Suzhou, China, also empowering Merck to better integrate vaccine production into its global production network, benefiting patients worldwide.

'The news of selling the Ireland vaccine factory has been circulating in the industry since last year; it has finally materialized. Personally, I believe there are two reasons: firstly, WUXI BIO is trying to divest from a not very promising business; secondly, there are concerns that the legislative progress of the 'Biological Security Law' may affect the future Orders of this factory,' Zhao Heng, founder of medical strategic consulting firm Latitude Health, told Caixian News in an interview.

On December 24 last year, WUXI APPTEC announced the complete sale of its WuXi ATU business in the USA and United Kingdom to a USA Private Equity Fund, Altaris. At that time, the industry believed that it had escaped from the accusations and doubts regarding the genetic business, attempting to avoid the risks of the USA Biological Safety Act; on the other hand, it was thought that the sale of the ATU business might weaken the company's long-term potential in the fields of cell and gene therapy.

It is worth noting that WUXI BIO will, through this transaction, reap a significant cash flow, just like WUXI APPTEC.

Notably, at the end of August last year, WUXI BIO announced that its Shareholder, Shanghai Hile Bio-Technology, would sell 30% of its stake in WUXI HIDE to WUXI BIO for 0.109 billion USD, making WUXI BIO the sole controlling party of WUXI HIDE.