(Yicai) Dec. 30 -- Huadong Medicine’s shares rose after the major Chinese drugmaker said regulators had accepted for review a marketing application by one of its subsidiaries for its first-in-class weight-loss drug for adult cats.

Huadong Medicine [SHE: 000963] closed 1.3 percent higher at CNY39.06 (USD5.59) per share today, compared with a 0.5 percent gain for the broader Shenzhen market. The stock has risen by 13 percent since the end of last year.

Zhongmei Huadong Pharmaceutical’s application to sell its pribopeptide injection for obese cats was accepted for review by China’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs on Dec. 26, its Hangzhou-based parent company announced on WeChat late yesterday.

China’s pet animal population is growing year by year, with the number of urban domesticated cats alone reaching more than 71 million last year. About 28 percent of pet felines in the country were classified as obese, according to a government white paper on the pet industry. Obesity increases their chances of developing diabetes, heart disease, respiratory problems, and joint issues.

Fat cats lost 9.3 percent of their body weight on average after receiving the recommended dose of the pribopeptide injection for six weeks during a phase III clinical trial, with 72 percent of the animals losing more than 5 percent of their weight, Huadong Medicine said. The test cats tolerated the drug well and had no adverse reactions, it added.

Pribopeptide injection, a long-acting dual agonist targeting the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor and the glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide receptor, is classified in the same dual-target category as Eli Lilly’s tirzepatide, according to Huadong Medicine. Zhongmei Huadong owns the pribopeptide injection's global intellectual property rights, it added.

There is a large gap in the pet market for weight loss drugs, Huadong Medicine said, adding that the pribopeptide injection will likely become the world's first long-acting drug targeting GLP-1 and GIP in overweight cats. 

Novo Nordisk's Semaglutide and tirzepatide are the two leading GLP-1 agonists for humans worldwide, but weight-loss drugs for animals will likely become the next important business for pharmaceutical companies.

Editor: Martin Kadiev