(Yicai Global) Feb. 1 -- Huahai Pharmaceutical said it will supply Junshi Biosciences with active pharmaceutical ingredients for its oral antiviral Covid-19 drug Mindewei, after agreeing last summer to make and sell Pfizer’s Paxlovid in China.

Huahai Pharma will provide Junshi Bio with ingredients and contracted agent manufacturing services for Mindewei over the next 10 years, the Linhai, Zhejiang province-based drugmaker said in a statement late yesterday.

Last August, Huahai Pharma revealed that it had reached a deal with Pfizer to produce and sell Paxlovid, the US drugmaker’s oral Covid-19 treatment, in the Chinese mainland over a five-year period.

Mindewei, also known as VV116, gained conditional sales approval from China’s National Medical Products Administration together with Simcere Pharmaceutical Group’s Xiannuoxin on Jan. 28. Only five oral Covid-19 drugs, three developed in China and two overseas, have been added to the list of coronavirus treatments approved for marketing in the country so far.

Shares of Huahai Pharma [SHA: 600521] rose 1 percent to close at CNY21.66 (USD3.21) today.

The company said on Jan. 15 that it expects net profit to have jumped 130 percent to 146 percent last year to between CNY1.1 billion and CNY1.2 billion (USD165.9 million and USD177.8 million).

Editor: Futura Costaglione