(Bloomberg) -- Chinese biotech company Beigene Ltd. plans to raise $2.1 billion in a direct offering of 145.8 million shares for working capital and other general corporate purposes, said the Nasdaq-listed company on Monday.

The shares will be priced at $14.23 each, equivalent to a price of $185 per American Depository Share -- 5.6% lower than its closing price on Friday. The offering is expected to close on or around July 15, said the company, whose shares are also traded in Hong Kong.

The share sale comes after the Beijing-based company’s blood cancer therapy became the first Chinese cancer drug to receive approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last November, positioning Beigene as one of the most promising Chinese biotech companies taking on the world’s biggest pharmaceutical firms in medical innovation and scientific research.

Investment into Chinese biotech startups is surging as the opening up of the Asian giant’s $132 billion pharmaceutical market creates an unprecedented profit-making opportunity for health-care companies. In a vote of confidence in its pipeline, American generics giant Amgen Inc. bought a 20.5% stake in BeiGene last year for $2.7 billion to jointly develop cancer therapies.

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