China Drug Maker’s Shares Plunge On AstraZeneca Vaccine “Pause”

Shares in China drug maker Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products plunged by 16.6% at the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on Wednesday on word that AstraZeneca has temporarily halted testing of a COVID-19 vaccine due to an unexplained illness during its Phase III trial.  (See announcement here.)

Kangtai said last month it signed a licensing pact with AstraZeneca to produce its COVID-19 vaccine AZD1222 in mainland China. Kangtai would annually make at least 100 million doses of the vaccine co-developed with Oxford University by the end of the year, an amount that was expected to rise to at least 200 million doses by the end of 2021, AstraZeneca said, according to a note by S&P Global.

Kangtai, whose products include vaccines, closed at 162.00 yuan. It has declined from an all-time high of $247.66 on August 4.   

Kangtai is led by billionaire entrepreneur Du Weimin. Du, 56, has a fortune worth $4.2 billion on the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List today. That fortune dropped by $836 million in connection with yesterday’s decline in Kangtai’s shares. His former wife Wang Liping held Kangtai shares worth nearly $4 .6 billion before yesterday’s plunge.

AstraZeneca, a European drug giant considered a global leader in the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, has entered into manufacturing agreements elsewhere to ramp up production. 

Among other Chinese companies involved in the vaccine scramble, Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical, controlled by billionaire Guo Guangchang, and BioNTech of German said on Aug. 5 that the first 72 participants have already been dosedwith candidate BNT162b1 following approval by Chinese regulatory authority National Medical Products Administration, or NMPA. The trial is part of BioNTech’s global development program.

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