(Yicai Global) Sept. 26 -- Shares of China's Cosunter Pharmaceutical rallied after the maker of liver disease medications said its new oral drug to prevent severe Covid-19 infections is allowed to start clinical trials.

Cosunter's stock price [SHE: 300436] moved up as much as 7.8 percent to CNY34.30 (USD4.80) intraday and closed 2.5 percent up.

The GST-HG171 tablet, developed by the firm's unit Cosunter Zhonglin Biotechnology, has been approved by the State Drug Administration for clinical trials, the Fujian province-based company said in a statement yesterday.

In preclinical studies, Cosunter's small molecule inhibitor was shown to block the original strains of Covid-19, as well as several variants including Beta, Delta, as well as Omicron BA.4 and BA.5, the company said.

Cosunter said last December that it will cooperate with Shanghai-based WuXi AppTec to develop the anti-Covid-19 drug. Cosunter would own the intellectual property rights as it had already developed some preclinical compounds with considerable efficiency.

The market already has another similar product, Pfizer's Paxlovid, as the National Medical Products Administration granted the antiviral medicine approval for emergency use in China back in February.

Cosunter is planning to have an annual production capacity of 60 million units of the drug, and the volume could be raised to 100 million in the future, Li Hongming, chief operating officer, said on the firm's WeChat account. Cosunter is also working with domestic suppliers to ensure the supply of high-quality and low-cost active pharmaceutical ingredients, Li added.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi