(Yicai Global) Feb. 17 -- Shares in Zhejiang Hisun Pharmaceutical hit the daily limit this morning after the Chinese drug firm got regulatory approval to sell the first drug with the potential to treat symptoms of the novel coronavirus-caused pneumonia.

Its stock [SHA:600267] opened 10 percent higher at CNY17.17 (USD2.46) and has remained there since.

Hisun's Favipiravir was clearly helping to alleviate symptoms without major side effects during preliminary clinical trials, China's Ministry of Science Technology said on Feb. 15. The National Medical Products Administration approved the medicine, one of three western-style treatments for the symptoms of the virus, for five years from Feb. 14.

There still need to be further trials to test Favipiravir's effect on the symptoms of the virus as it was only tested on a small number of patients, Taizhou Daily, a newspaper in Hisun's hometown, cited the company's medicine department head Li Yue. The drug can effectively lower the viral nucleic acid load in infected cells and curb the replication of genomes in supernatant liquid that contains the virus, he added, saying current test data shows it has no toxic effect on cells as it does not change their viability under any concentration levels.

Favipiravir was initially developed by Japan's Fujifilm Toyama Chemical, and got approval in Japan in March 2014 to treat influenza A and B. It has also shown to be effective on other viruses, like Ebola.

Hisun penned a deal to develop, make and sell an anti-influenza drug containing Favipiravir in China in 2016. The medicine's chemical compound patent expired in August 2019.

Editor: James Boynton