Chinese firms make gains in Bay Area
By Andrew S. Ross, Chronicle Columnist
Updated 5:23 pm, Wednesday, December 19, 2012

A major, publicly traded Chinese biotech company has purchased the former Bayer HealthCare campus on Hilltop Drive in Richmond. The 53-acre, 355,000-square-foot site includes seven buildings. Photo: KidderMatthews.com / SF
The Chinese are most definitely coming.
Early next year, a major Chinese biotech company will be announcing its plans for the 53-acre, 355,000-square-foot former Bayer HealthCare campus it has just purchased on Hilltop Drive in Richmond.
The company is a publicly traded, non-state enterprise whose name is not being disclosed by the brokers pending the formal announcement of its plans. It is said to be a major drug researcher, developer and manufacturer, described by one source as an original equipment manufacturer for China's pharmaceutical industry. The purchase - price also not disclosed at this time - is also said to be the company's first venture outside of China.
"This will act as a bridge for Chinese pharmaceutical companies who want to come to the Bay Area," said Skip Whitney, a partner at San Francisco real estate broker Kidder Mathews, who heads the firm's China Services Group. The deal, long in gestation - as China deals often are - closed last week.
The site, which includes seven buildings, originally housed a Bayer-owned affiliate, Berlex, a developer of a multiple sclerosis drug and other treatments. Bayer vacated the premises in 2010 when it relocated research operations to San Francisco's Mission Bay.
Bayer initially put the campus on the market for $150 million, but reduced the asking price considerably since then. Whitney would not say whether the price paid is closer to the $50 million floated by brokers in 2009.
"The reason they chose Richmond and the Bay Area is the innovation and the proximity to UC Berkeley, Livermore Lab, UCSF and Mission Bay," he said, adding that the company may be looking to partner and collaborate with some of those institutions.
Andrew S. Ross is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. E-mail: bottomline@sfchronicle.com. Blog: www.sfgate.com/columns/bottomline Twitter: @andrewsross Facebook: sfg.ly/doACKM
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