GeneHarbor plans Hong Kong IPO to fund new medicinal products, widen anti-ageing supplements line

GeneHarbor, which produces anti-ageing supplements, wants to diversify into medicines, CEO Wang Jun says

Firm added new production line this year in Zhejiang province to produce NMN, which has potential to treat Alzheimer’s

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A shopper browsing through shelves of health supplements in a supermarket in Sydney. Photo: AFP

Published: 2:05pm, 23 Sep 2020Updated: 2:15pm, 23 Sep 2020

A home-grown Hong Kong company plans to join a growing list of firms tapping the city’s stock market for capital for health care-related investment amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

GeneHarbor (Hong Kong) Biotechnologies, which produces anti-ageing supplements, plans to make an initial public offering before June next year for funds to develop compounds to treat neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, chief executive officer Wang Jun said.

“We are [already] a profitable company,” he told the Post in an interview. “The reason we want to raise money is to extend our product line and diversify from supplements into medicines.”

The dietary supplement producer, established in 2004, spent 2 billion yuan (US$294 million) to build a factory this year in Ningbo in eastern Zhejiang province, capable of producing 100 tonnes of nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN) annually. The company claims the compound helps delay the ageing process and has the potential to treat Alzheimer’s.

Wang Jun, CEO of GeneHarbor (Hong Kong) Biotechnologies, at the company’s lab in Sha Tin. Photo: K. Y. Cheng

A successful listing would be a rare feat for Hong Kong, which has hosted predominantly mainland China-based biotechnology firms since an April 2018 reform opened the floodgate for so-called pre-profit drugs and medical device developers to sell shares to the public.