(Yicai Global) Dec. 28 -- Simcere Pharmaceutical Group’s shares skyrocketed after a local regulator in China said the drugmaker’s new oral Covid-19 treatment will likely come to market as soon as next February. 

After surging by more than 21 percent this morning, Nanjing-based Simcere [HKG: 2096] closed 13.9 percent higher at HKD11.36 (USD1.46). The stock has gained over 26 percent this year.

Simcere’s Covid-19 treatment SIM0417 will likely be ready for market as soon as February, the Jiangsu Provincial Drug Administration said via WeChat yesterday. Some 1,208 subjects have been enrolled in its Phase III clinical trials, it noted.

SIM0417, similar to Pfizer’s Paxlovid, inhibits the protease needed for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which caused Covid-19, to replicate. Paxlovid is priced at CNY2,300 (USD330) per box in China.

Simcere also announced yesterday that China’s National Medical Products Administration has cleared its self-developed anti-tumor injection SIM0237 for clinical trials. The drug received investigational new drug approval from the US Food and Drug Administration in October, it added.

First-half net profit at the company, which has six marketed innovative drugs, plunged nearly 90 percent from a year earlier to CNY63.8 million (USD9.15 million), its semi-annual trading results showed. Revenue jumped 27 percent to CNY2.7 billion (USD390 million).

Editor: Futura Costaglione