(Yicai Global) June 28 -- BCHT Biotechnology’s stock price jumped after the Chinese vaccine developer announced plans to acquire an mRNA biotech startup.

BCHT [SHA: 688276] finished 3.4 percent higher at CNY59.66 (USD8.23) a share in Shanghai today, after earlier climbing by as much as 5.4 percent. The stock is still down by 13.7 percent from the end of last year.

BCHT signed an investment agreement with the shareholders of Transcend Biomedical Suzhou, with plans for an initial investment of CNY150 million (USD20.8 million), the Changchun-based buyer said in a statement late yesterday.

After that, BCHT’s investment in the target firm will increase at particular milestones in the research and development of its vaccine products, as agreed by both parties, with its shareholding eventually rising to 100 percent. The investment period is expected to take about three to four years, it said.

Dr. Chen Jianxin, Transcend Biomedical Suzhou’s founder, is also a co-founder of Acuitas Therapeutics, a lipid nano-particle delivery tech company. Pfizer-BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccines were developed using Acuitas’ LNP technology, BCHT said.

Transcend Biomedical Suzhou already has full-process mRNA vaccine development capabilities including product design, synthesis, pilot production and quality control, and it is developing a pipeline of vaccines.

The acquisition will help BCHT speed construction of its mRNA vaccine R&D and industrialization platform and help create a variety of mRNA jabs, while acquiring the intellectual property rights to the vaccine development technology, the firm said.

Editor: Tom Litting