(Yicai Global) July 18 -- Shares of Kexing Bioproducts jumped after the company said China has given the green light for its new Covid-19 drug, which is expected to be much more powerful than remdesivir, to enter clinical trials.

Kexing’s stock price [SHA: 688136] closed up 6 percent at CNY27.38 (USD4.10). The shares have fallen about 20 percent in the past 12 months.

The company’s Shenzhen unit received notice from the National Medical Products Administration allowing human trials of Shen26, a small molecule oral drug for Covid-19, the Jinan-based drugmaker announced yesterday.

Shen26 belongs to the same category of drugs as remdesivir, an antiviral agent used to treat hospitalized Covid-19 patients. But Shen26 is deemed to be even stronger. The effect of the medicine on the omicron variant is 103 times that of remdesivir based on Kexing's initial in vitro tests.

Kexing paid CNY100 million (USD14.8 million) in February to secure exclusive and global intellectual property rights to develop and sell Shen26, whose initial developers are two well-known antiviral drug experts working at Chinese universities.

Kexing chose Shenzhen-based Salubris Pharmaceutical as the project’s contract developer and manufacturer earlier last month. Salubris will provide technical services such as pilot manufacturing of Shen26 for clinical trials and appraisal of the production process it designed during the drug registration stage.

Salubris is also contracted to mass produce the new drug and its ingredients once it gets regulatory approval.

Editor: Emmi Laine, Xiao Yi