This article only represents the author's own views.
A chain of hospitals specializing in stem cell transplants has filed the first IPO application of the year on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, banking on the clinical credentials of its founder Lu Daopei to attract funds for expansion.
The brains behind Lu DaoPei Medical Group Holding Ltd. has been active in hematology research since 1957. Lu helped to pioneer bone marrow transplants in China and developed treatments for types of blood cancer using traditional Chinese medicine. He was the first researcher to prove that arsenic sulfide, a compound extracted from the Chinese herbal medicine Xiong Huang, could treat certain forms of leukemia. He was also instrumental in setting up China's first public stem cell bank in Beijing in 1996 using umbilical cord blood.