China’s Akeso, hailed as biotech’s ‘DeepSeek moment’, falls despite nod for cancer drug

Chinese regulator grants second approval for lung cancer drug ivonescimab, which has outperformed Merck’s Keytruda in phase three trial

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Akeso’s new immunotherapy drug called ivonescimab allowed half of its patients to go 11.1 months without their condition worsening. Photo: Shutterstock

Published: 3:11pm, 28 Apr 2025Updated: 7:23pm, 28 Apr 2025

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 11.8 per cent to HK$87.20 at the close of trading, 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.