(Yicai Global) July 7 -- Shares of Brii Biosciences surged after the young drugmaker said it has started selling China's first domestically developed Covid-19 antibody therapy.

Brii's stock price [HKG: 2137] closed 11.8 percent higher at HKD9.87 (USD1.30) after jumping as much as 30 percent intraday. The closing price is still less than half of the issuance price when the firm went public a year ago.

The monoclonal neutralizing antibody therapy, developed by Brii's unit TSB Therapeutics, has appeared on the Chinese market, the Beijing-based firm announced today. This is the first medicine that Brii has commercialized, according to its website.

The National Medical Products Administration approved Brii-196/Brii-198 to go to the market in December. The drug is used to treat adults and adolescents from 12 to 17 years of age with mild or moderate Covid-19 symptoms that could turn severe. The national health commission included the medicine in its Covid-19 diagnosis and treatment guidelines in March.

Brii donated nearly 3,000 doses of the drug to 22 hospitals in 21 Chinese cities for clinical treatment amid the delta variant outbreaks last year.

Formed in 2017, Brii specializes in developing drugs for infectious diseases. Last year, it made a net loss of CNY4.2 billion (USD626.6 million), rising more than three times from a year earlier, according to its earnings report.

Editors: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi