After red-hot IPO, Chinese biotech firm Kintor eyes blockbuster drugs for prostate cancer, sex hormo

“We believe both candidates have the potential to be blockbuster drugs in China and the US,” chief financial officer Lucy Lu Yan said in an interview.

03:06

Chinese firm ready to make 100 million Coronavirus vaccine doses if trials are successful

Chinese firm ready to make 100 million Coronavirus vaccine doses if trials are successful

Proxalutamide slows or stops cancer growth by inhibiting androgens, male hormones that stimulate prostate cancer cells, from binding to their receptors. Topical drug pyrilutamide blocks androgens’ signalling to prevent hair loss.

Early results from those trials on 105 prostate cancer patients in China who previously had chemotherapy are encouraging, according to chief executive officer Tong Youzhi.

Their average tumour growth-free survival time in the phase two trials was 11.2 months, Tong said. This compared to 8.3 months among patients (who had no chemotherapy treatment) in phase three trials of enzalutamide in China, a therapy developed on Astellas Pharma.

“From these data, we feel comfortable to say we have better efficacy among Chinese patients,” said Tong, who previously worked at US drugs developer Angion Biomedica before founding Kintor Pharmaceutical in 2009.

Enzalutamide is the only approved oral drug in the US for three forms of late-stage prostate cancer. It was approved last November in China and went on sale in March.

China’s prostate drug market may grow to 21.3 billion yuan in 2025 from 4.7 billion yuan last year, according to Frost & Sullivan. Enzalutamide had 36 per cent of the US market worth US$5.9 billion in 2018.

Chinese cancer drug firm Akesobio’s US$330 million IPO – Hong Kong’s largest this year – is oversubscribed 639 times by city’s investors

For hair loss drug candidate pyrilutamide, Kintor aims to take on Johnson & Johnson’s minoxidil, which has about 70-75 per cent of the market in China and the US. Merck’s finasteride has the rest of the sales.

Phase one trials showed pyrilutamide is safe, Kintor said. Efficacy data will be produced by phase two trials. The market for hair-loss drugs will be worth 3.1 billion yuan in China by 2025, versus 1.47 billion yuan in 2018, according to Frost & Sullivan.

Kintor’s offering of 9.2 million shares to Hong Kong retail investors was 551 times subscribed, while 92.3 million shares allotted to international investors were over eight times subscribed.

The previous four biotech stocks listed in Hong Kong since December recorded retail subscription rates of 192 to 639 times. They have risen by 66 to 109 per cent since their listings.

04:23

Government support can help Hong Kong become China’s biotech ‘nerve centre’

Government support can help Hong Kong become China’s biotech ‘nerve centre’

Since it is difficult for retail investors to differentiate which biotech companies are likely to achieve commercial success, many are short term speculation-minded, noted Francis Lun Sheung-nim, chief executive officer of GEO Securities. “This sort of easy profit will not last long.”

Given recent rallies in Chinese health care stocks, especially biotech companies, some analysts and investors are concerned about the valuations of pre-revenue companies, noted Jay Lee, an analyst at Morningstar Investment Management.

“Although we do not view the whole sector as significantly overvalued yet, we have changed the ratings for a number of stocks from buy to hold in recent weeks,” he said.

For innovative drug developers, listing candidates that have a diverse portfolio of drug candidates and a clear research focus are preferred, since even drug candidates with promising early-stage trials data can fail in later stage trials, Lee added.

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