After red-hot IPO, Chinese biotech firm Kintor eyes blockbuster drugs for prostate cancer, sex hormone-related hair loss

Name: Chinese firm ready to make 100 million Coronavirus vaccine doses if trials are successful
Uploaded: 2020-05-22T02:41:48.000Z
Duration: 3 min 6 s
Description: Chinese firm ready to make 100 million Coronavirus vaccine doses if trials are successful

Chinese biotech firm eyes shares in mainland, US markets for prostate cancer, hair-loss treatment drugs

Stock surges as much as 10 per cent in Hong Kong debut while the broader market slumps under political cloud

3-MIN READ3-MIN

A technician cultivates lung cells as he preps for research into the infectivity of the SARS-CoV-2 in human lungs at a laboratory at the University of Hong Kong. Biotech IPOs are among the hottest stocks in Hong Kong this year amid public health crisis. Photo: Bloomberg

Eric Ng

Published: 10:41am, 22 May 2020Updated: 5:02pm, 22 May 2020

Kintor Pharmaceutical, a developer of prostate cancer and hair-loss therapies that just completed one of the hottest biotech initial public offerings in Hong Kong, has lofty ambitions to take on blockbuster drugs in China and the US.

The company is conducting phase three clinical trials in mainland for proxalutamide, its top candidate for late-stage prostate cancer treatment. It aims to apply for marketing approval before year-end, while doing phase two trials in the US.

At the same time, the firm is also conducting phase two trials on 160 men in China and phase one trials on 30 men in the US to test the safety and efficacy of pyrilutamide, which tackles androgen-receptor that causes hair loss among men and women. Phase three trials on 600 people in China, US and Japan are planned for next year.

“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

Lu is hoping the results will give the Suzhou, Jiangsu province-based firm a shot at China’s rising demand for health care to underpin its earnings outlook. The size of the domestic market for both treatments is worth 24.4 billion yuan (US$3.4 billion) by 2025, according to Frost & Sullivan.