Chinese biotech shares are surging this year on growing optimism over innovative cancer treatments being licensed to western pharmaceutical companies.
The Hang Seng Biotech index, which reflects the performance of the 50 largest such companies listed in Hong Kong, has returned 61.8 per cent so far this year, well ahead of the 20.6 per cent return on the city’s benchmark Hang Seng index.
The rally marks the end of a prolonged bear market for China’s biotech industry. Interest in the sector faded in 2021 as a broader market downturn, US-China tensions and concerns about overvaluation were compounded by an anti-corruption campaign in China’s medical sector and regulatory changes that made drug sales less profitable.