Shares of Victor Li’s CK Life more than double to a multi-year high after favourable clinical trial on drug used for treating skin cancer
- The drug, being developed by CK Life’s unit Polynoma, could be the first vaccine-based immunotherapy for stage-two sufferers of melanoma if it meets US Food and Drug Administration requirements on further trial work
- CK Life’s shares more than doubled to a 53-month high of HK$0.90, with 433 million shares changing hands, more than 110 times their daily average transactions
The drug, being developed by CK Life’s California-based subsidiary Polynoma, could potentially be the first vaccine-based immunotherapy for stage-two sufferers of melanoma - the most severe and deadly form of skin cancer - if it meets US Food and Drug Administration requirements on further trial work.
“Our drug candidate, targeting stage two B and C patients, has been shown to significantly increase the recurrence-free survival likelihood of patients in our trial,” CK Life’s chief scientific officer Melvin Toh Kean-meng said. “We are not aware of another company’s vaccine immunotherapy candidate entering phase three trial.”
CK Life shares more than doubled to a 53-month high of HK$0.90, after jumping to an intraday high of HK$0.91, with as many as 433 million shares changing hands, or 110 times their average daily transactions in the past year.
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“Given the ultra-strong turnover and the fact that the shares closed at near the intraday high, I expect further speculative buying to easily push the stock above HK$1 tomorrow,” said VC Asset Management managing director Louis Tse Ming-kwong. “I wouldn’t be surprised that the stock sees a 10 per cent correction ... while it is difficult to estimate how much additional value the interim clinical results may bring, the temptation to speculate on the stock is high.”