(Yicai Global) May 16 -- A unit under Yifan Pharmaceutical Co. has put forward an offer to privatize a Singaporean biotech firm in hopes of acquiring the target's products, production methods and global sales network.

Yifan International Pharmaceutical Co. is looking to pick up the company for just over USD28 million and delist it from the Australian Securities Exchange, its Hangzhou-based parent said in a statement yesterday.

SciGen closed at AUD0.024 (USD0.018) a share on its last trading day, May 14, and Yifan is prepared to pay almost triple that. It has already struck a deal to take 96 percent of the company from Poland's Bioton SA, which has offset nearly USD30 million worth of debt against the acquisition price and will write off other debts owed to it when the transaction is completed.

Yifan will gain access to the target firm's substantial distribution network in the Asia Pacific and its long-term partnerships with Sandoz Corp., Novartis International AG and Merck & Co. Inc. SciGen also has has licenses to produce in a number of foreign countries, and operates across nearly 20 nations, including some in the Middle East and Africa.

SciGen specializes in the sale of recombinant human insulins, recombinant human growth hormone injections, recombinant granulocyte-colony stimulating factor injections and more than 20 other similar biological agents, the statement added.

Editor: James Boynton