Pengpai News reporter Li Xiaoxiao
Another mainland innovative pharmaceutical company has been sprinting for Hong Kong stock listing.
htmlOn June 28, Beijing Green Bamboo Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Leng Bamboo Bio") submitted an application for listing to the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. This local enterprise, which has been established for more than 20 years, includes two popular categories: vaccines and biological agents. According to the prospectus, the company currently has 3 clinical stage products and 4 preclinical stage products.
Green Bamboo Bioproduct Pipeline
Among the 7 products under development, the shingles vaccine LZ901 is particularly worthy of attention, which is currently in the second phase clinical research stage. According to Frost & Sullivan's data, based on sales revenue, the market for shingles vaccine in China increased from zero in 2015 to 600 million yuan in 2021, and is expected to increase to 10.8 billion yuan in 2025.
From a global perspective, only two shingles vaccines have been approved, while only one imported vaccine in China has been approved. In this popular track of 10 billion, no domestic vaccine has been approved. Regarding the advantages of LZ901, Green Zhu Bio emphasized in its prospectus that the price is low, estimated to be about 500 yuan to RMB 800 yuan per shot, which is only about half of the current unit price of domestic imported vaccines.
In the prospectus book, Green Zhu Bio emphasizes "focusing on internal research and development of affordable human vaccines and therapeutic biological agents." Relying on the advantage of parity, whether Green Bamboo Bio can outperform the 10 billion track of shingles vaccine has become a concern for the market.
has transferred 6 vaccines to Zhifei Bio's subsidiary
The name Green Bamboo Bio is not that famous in the industry, but industry insiders can see a lot of familiar content from its development history.
Green Bamboo Biology was founded in 2001 and is located in , Tongzhou District, Beijing. In addition to the 7 products under development mentioned in the prospectus, since its establishment, Green Zhu Bio has successfully developed three polysaccharide protein-binding vaccines, two polysaccharide vaccines and one virus inactivated vaccine. According to the official website of
, Green Bamboo Bio said that these six vaccine products were transferred to Beijing Zhifei Green Bamboo Biopharma Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Zhifei Green Bamboo"), which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Zhifei Bio (300122), a private vaccine giant of hundreds of billions of yuan.
official website information shows that Zhifei Green Bamboo currently has 4 products on sale, all of which are bacterial vaccines, and the sales scope has covered the whole country, and some products have been sold overseas. According to Zhifei Bio's 2021 annual report, its independent products revenue was 9.697 billion yuan, accounting for 31.64% of the total revenue, and its independent products mainly include four vaccines under Zhifei Green Bamboo.
Kong Jian, co-founder of Green Bamboo Bio, also has a lot of connections with the vaccine industry.
prospectus shows that before starting the company and since 1988, Kong Jian worked at the Beijing Institute of Biological Products of the Ministry of Health. In October 2000, he served as deputy director of the Institute's Science and Technology Development Department, director of the Science and Technology Development Department and director of the Immunodiagnosis Research Office, and was mainly responsible for the scientific research of biological products.
It is worth mentioning that the "six major institutes" that the Chinese vaccine industry often talks about refer to six biological products research institutes, including the Beijing Institute of Biological Products. They are local vaccine research institutions established by the state and also provide talents for the development of China's vaccine industry. Nowadays, the vaccine companies such as Zhifei Bio, Hualan Bio , and Watson Bio have more or less stories related to the "Six Major Institutes".
The current Green Bamboo Bio has not given up on the vaccine track. The prospectus shows that there are 3 vaccines for its seven products under development, in addition to the shingles vaccine, there are also recombinant chickenpox vaccine and recombinant rabies vaccine.
However, these vaccines are still a long way from real commercialization. For example, the latest progress given by the shingles vaccine is to complete the Phase II study in China in the fourth quarter of this year, launch the Phase III clinical trial in the first quarter of 2023, and submit a new drug application (NDA) to National Medical Products Administration in the second quarter of 2024; the recombinant chickenpox vaccine must complete the Phase I study in the second quarter of 2023; the recombinant rabies vaccine must conduct a pre-applicant clinical trial application meeting with the National Medical Products Administration in the second quarter of 2023.In addition to the
vaccine, Green Bamboo Bio also has four dual anti-drugs, targeting autoimmune diseases or tumor diseases such as ankylosing spondylitis, psoriasis, leukemia, , lymphoma, , etc. At present, the front is K3. The clinical trial of the drug in China entered Phase III in the second quarter of 2023, and is expected to submit a biologics license application (BLA) in the fourth quarter of 2024.
Green Bamboo Bio's financial data in recent years
At present,Green Bamboo Bio has no products approved for commercial sales, nor has it generated any profit from product sales. The prospectus disclosed that in 2020, 2021 and the three months ended March 31, 2022, the company recorded a total of RMB 174 million, RMB 539.4 million and RMB 44.3 million.
In other words, in less than two and a half years, Green Zhu Bio lost more than 750 million yuan. Green Zhu Bio said that most of the losses come from R&D expenses, administrative expenses and financial liabilities fair value losses recorded in profit and loss at fair value.
"Affordable Version" vaccines and biological agents will win?
Whether it is a vaccine or a biological agent, Green Bamboo Bio has no shortage of clear or potential opponents.
Take the biological agent K3 as an example. According to Luzhu Bio, this is a drug developed based on the antibody structure of adalimumab. adalimumab is a very successful TNF-α inhibitor, sold by AbbV under the brand name "Xumeile". It has been ranked among the world's "Good Medicine King" for many years. There are many adalimumab biosimilars approved or under development in China. In its prospectus, Green Zhu Bio also admitted that K3 is expected to mainly compete with biosimilar , which has been on the market or under development in adalimumab.
shingles vaccine Currently, GSK products have been approved in China and were officially launched in June 2020. It is the first shingles vaccine approved by China for the prevention of shingles in adults aged 50 and above. In addition, the research and development of domestic shingles vaccines is not deserted, and 100 g bio , Ruike Bio (2179), Shanghai Bio, Yidao Bio, etc. are all under development.
The domestic shingles vaccine is ahead of the front of Baike Biotech (688276), a subsidiary of Changchun Hi-Tech (000661). Guosheng Securities Research report on June 21 pointed out that Baike Bio's shingles vaccine entered the third phase of clinical trials in December 2019, and was accepted for production application in April 2022, and is expected to be approved from the end of 2022 to the beginning of 2023. According to the progress of other domestic companies, the company that has not yet entered Phase III of clinical practice is expected to become the first domestic shingles vaccine to be approved for listing, and at the same time, it remains domestically exclusive for a long time.
How can Green Bamboo Biology win in the face of competition? One answer given by Green Bamboo Bio is "affordable".
AbbVie's average selling price of adalimumab in China was initially 7,729 yuan per box in 2015, and finally dropped to 1,258 yuan in 2020. Green Bio stressed that the pharmacokinetics, safety and immunogenicity of the company K3 showed that it was highly similar to adalimumab, but K3 was expected to be priced at a retail price of about 400 to 500 yuan per dose.
For the herpes zoster vaccine, Green Bamboo Bio said that the core product of LZ901 and the independently developed recombinant herpes zoster candidate vaccine are expected to become the world's first herpes zoster vaccine with a tetramer molecular structure. It is used to prevent herpes zoster caused by the varicella zoster virus in adults aged 50 and above. It has the advantages of small side effects, advantages in molecular structure, and highly stable and easy storage and transportation. In terms of price of
, Green Bamboo Bio expects that the retail price of its own shingles vaccine is expected to be about 500 yuan to 800 yuan per injection, and two shots are given per course of treatment. Compared with the current retail price of 1,600 yuan per injection of vaccines sold in the Chinese market, the price is more affordable.
's focus on affordable vaccines and biopharmaceuticals can gain market recognition, but it still depends on its R&D progress and subsequent commercialization capabilities. It can be seen that with these products, Green Bamboo Bio has received multiple rounds of financing. Wind data shows that Green Zhu Bio has received five rounds of financing since 2014, with a cumulative financing amount of over 570 million yuan. It is worth mentioning that investors also include A+H-share listed pharmaceutical companies Tiger Pharmaceutical and Lizhu Pharmaceutical .On the same day that the prospectus was disclosed by
after the C round of financing, Lvzhu Bio announced that it had completed the C round of financing recently. According to the prospectus, after the C round of financing, Zhuhai Lizhu holds 1.21% of the equity of Green Zhu Bio.
Editor in charge: Shi Dongdong
Proofreading: Luan Meng
