At the beginning of the year, domestic HPV vaccine leader Wantai Biotechnology once regained its position with a market value of 100 billion yuan, but only maintained it for three trading days. On the evening of January 15th, the company announced a "change of position" announcement, appointing Jiang Zhiming, who had no previous experience in the vaccine industry, as the new general manager. In addition, Yangshengtang, the largest shareholder of Wantai Biotechnology, will have 3.6208 million restricted shares lifted from listing and circulation on the 15th. The restricted shares are sourced from a private placement two years ago, with an additional issue price of 135.33 yuan per share (later reduced to 96.66 yuan per share due to equity distribution and allocation costs). As of Friday's close, Wantai Biotechnology reported a price of 67.21 yuan per share.
In addition to the company's turnover and the lifting of restricted shares, industry analysis suggests that the recent decline in the stock price of Wantai Biotechnology may be affected by negative industry news. Merck announced on January 9th that the second dose vaccination program for 9-14 year old women against the nine valent human papillomavirus vaccine (brewing yeast) (trade name: Jiada Xiu 9) has been approved by the Drug Administration. Analysts say that this approval means that multinational pharmaceutical companies that have monopolized the global nine price HPV market for six years are starting to offer lower priced vaccination plans.
The disguised price reduction of Merck's nine valent HPV vaccine undoubtedly dealt a head-on blow to the yet to be approved domestically produced nine valent HPV vaccine. Among them, Wantai Biotechnology, which has the fastest research and development progress of the domestic nine valent HPV vaccine, was the first to be affected. On January 9th, it opened low and fell more than 7% during trading. The Phase III clinical trial of the nine valent HPV vaccine (for female indications) has entered the case monitoring stage and is currently undergoing a 30-36 month visit. Kangle Wei Shi fell more than 12% in intraday trading on January 9th, while the exclusive agent of Merck's nine valent HPV vaccine in China, Zhifei Biotechnology, fell nearly 9% in intraday trading on January 10th.
According to a research report by Du Xiangyang and others from Southwest Securities on December 11th, it is generally expected that domestic HPV vaccines will be listed one after another after 2025, involving listed companies such as Wantai Biology, Watson Biology, Shanghai Bowei, Kangle Weishi, and Ruike Biology.
The "disguised price reduction" of Merck's nine price vaccine has dealt a head-on blow to domestic HPV vaccine concept stocks: the stock price of Wantai Biotechnology, which once raised the richest person's net worth by 30 billion yuan, has retreated to a high level, with Zhifei Biotechnology and Watson Biotechnology "lying on the gun" falling incessantly
On December 15, 2023, the stock price of Wantai Biotechnology hit the "rare" limit up. On December 8th, an investor asked, "Has the visit to the V8 phase of the Phase III main clinical trial of the 9-valent HPV vaccine ended?" On the evening of the 14th, Wantai Biotech replied, "The on-site work for the visit has been completed and specimen testing is currently underway." Outsiders predicted that Wantai Biotech's 9-valent HPV vaccine will be launched ahead of schedule. However, relevant media called Wantai Biotechnology to learn that it is currently not possible to predict the launch time of the nine valent HPV vaccine.
It is worth mentioning that Wantai Biotech's explanation does not seem to dampen the enthusiasm of investors. Looking at it for a long time, the cumulative maximum increase in stock price of Wantai Biotechnology from December 14th to January 8th last year was 84.68%, and the rise in stock price also led to a surge in the value of the company's actual controller, Zhong Anan. According to an article published on January 6 by Prism, the WeChat official account, "After the value of the company has soared by 30 billion, there is not much time left for Zhong Allergy, China's richest man", Wantai Biology closed at 74.80 yuan on January 4, up 57% from three weeks ago, which also increased the value of Zhong Dang, the company's actual controller, by more than 30 billion yuan. On the 2023 Hurun China Rich List released on December 12, Zhong Bingbing just topped the list with a total wealth of 450 billion yuan.
The industry believes that the market's preference for Wantai Biotechnology may stem from the company's first mover advantage in the development of the nine valent HPV vaccine. On the one hand, the Drug Evaluation Center of the National Medical Products Administration issued the "Technical Guidelines for Clinical Trials of Human Papillomavirus Vaccines (Trial)" in July last year, relaxing the clinical trial standards for HPV vaccines. According to the document, companies that have already obtained approval for the launch of HPV vaccine products are expected to shorten their research and development cycles for higher priced HPV vaccines. On the other hand, the bivalent HPV vaccine "Xinkening" under Wantai Biotechnology is the first domestically produced cervical cancer vaccine, which has driven the company's performance and stock price to soar together since its listing in December 2019.
Setting the timeline back to December 15th of last year, in sharp contrast to the sharp rise of Wantai Biotechnology, the 100 billion dollar vaccine white horse stock Zhifei Biotechnology closed down 8.78% on the same day, marking the largest single day decline of the year. Looking at it for a long time, the stock price of Zhifei Biotechnology entered a deep correction after reaching its peak in May 2021, with a cumulative maximum decline of 72.6% so far. Industry analysis shows that in addition to relying too heavily on agency business for the performance of Zhifei Biotechnology, the market is not optimistic, and domestically produced HPV vaccines have become a trend of encirclement and suppression, which may also be an important factor.
Watson Biotech, which has launched domestically produced bivalent HPV vaccines and is actively promoting clinical research on phase III of the nine valent HPV vaccine, hit a historic low in its stock price on Thursday, with the largest cumulative decline of 79.78% since its peak in August 2021. Watson Biotech stated on its interactive platform on January 11th that the company is actively promoting the clinical research of phase III of the nine valent HPV vaccine, and the specific launch time cannot be accurately estimated at the moment.
Due to the negative impact of Merck's continuous strengthening of its nine price HPV first mover advantage and the lifting of restricted shares, the stock price of Wantai Biotechnology has recently experienced a correction, with the largest cumulative decline of 24.14% from its high this year.