Shares of Chinese cancer drug developer Akeso slumped on Monday despite the company receiving a second marketing approval from the mainland’s drug regulator for an innovative medicine.
The shares tumbled 10.2 per cent to HK$88.90 in the afternoon, after surging 20.8 per cent in the previous four sessions on the back of a string of favourable clinical trial results announcements. The shares traded as high as HK$105.50 on Friday, 6.5 times their initial public offering price of HK$16.18 five years ago.
Guangzhou-based Akeso said in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange late on Sunday that the National Medical Products Administration had given it the go-ahead to market ivonescimab to treat certain non-small-cell lung cancer patients.
“This indication marks ivonescimab’s second major approval,” the statement said, adding that the drug offered patients a safer ‘‘chemotherapy-free’’ alternative. Last May, regulators approved ivonescimab to treat non-squamous non-small-cell lung cancer patients.
Akeso founder and CEO Michelle Xia. Photo: Handout
The development of the new antibody drug was hailed by the mainland media last month as the biotech industry’s “DeepSeek moment”, as a clinical trial showed the treatment to be much more effective than a US-developed drug.
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