Akeso’s overseas drug promise fails to slow share decline

The Chinese drugmaker has been under pressure on equity markets since revealing plans for a share placement, overriding positive news for its key cancer therapy

Key takeaways:

• Akeso’s shares have now fallen below the October placement price, in a sell-off compounded by overall stock market weakness
• Its revenue from innovative drugs rose 29% in the first half of the year, but the company is still making a loss, and overseas sales have yet to materialize

By Molly Wen

Hong Kong-listed drug developer Akeso Inc. (9926.HK) has seen its shares shed a fifth of their value in recent weeks despite progress in developing innovative drugs and leveraging international partnerships.

A trigger for the sell-off was a move two weeks ago to place new shares to fund its research and commercialization activities.

Investors took the news badly and the stock has since stayed under pressure in volatile trade, falling 9.59% to HK$83.90 on Oct. 22 and closing at HK$84.10 on Oct. 26. That was about 21.5% below a closing price of HK$107.20 two weeks earlier on Oct. 12.

Akeso announced plans on Oct. 14 to place 20 million new shares at HK$97.76 apiece, a 6.9% discount to the previous day’s close, with estimated net proceeds of about HK$1.94 billion ($247 million). Its shares fell 9.62% on the day of the announcement.

The additional funds were needed to support efforts to discover and launch new therapies, Akeso said, outlining plans to spend about 85% of the proceeds on R&D, another 5% to commercialize existing products and the rest for general corporate purposes.

Investors were apparently unsettled by the persistent thirst for funding when the drugmaker still has the benefit of a cash cushion.

At the midpoint of this year, Akeso held about 9.16 billion yuan ($1.37 billion) in cash, cash equivalents and other short-term financial assets, while some funds from an earlier placement in September 2025 remained unused.

Akeso’s equity decline also coincided with a broader pullback in Hong Kong stocks. The Hang Seng Index fell for three straight sessions from Oct. 20, dropping 3.03% on Oct. 22 to below 23,000. The Hang Seng Healthcare Index also fell 5.65% on Oct. 22, while shares of innovative drugmakers including Zai Lab (9688.HK), Innovent Biologics (1801.HK) and Keymed Biosciences (2162.HK) each dropped more than 8%.

Meanwhile, Akeso is making strides with its lead drug, ivonescimab, which is designed to block two proteins to help the body attack cancer cells. The bispecific antibody is already widely dispensed in China to treat a type of lung cancer but is undergoing tests for wider use.

The company disclosed positive Phase Three trial results at a medical conference this month in Madrid, saying ivonescimab plus chemotherapy met the primary clinical endpoint as a first-line treatment for advanced biliary tract cancer. The median overall survival period of 14.9 months compared with 12.1 months for patients in the control group receiving AstraZeneca’s durvalumab along with chemotherapy, Akeso said. These first promising results against gastrointestinal cancer indicate the potential to expand the drug’s application to a wider range of conditions.

Overseas partnership

Akeso was among an early wave of Chinese drugmakers to develop bispecific antibodies as cancer therapies. Ivonescimab targets both PD-1 and VEGF pathways to prime the immune system to attack cancer cells while also limiting a tumor’s blood supply.

Rights to develop and market ivonescimab in major overseas markets, including the United States, Europe, Japan and Canada, were sold to U.S. biotechnology company Summit Therapeutics in 2022.

The prospects for returns on that deal have now been boosted by a $2 billion strategic investment by AstraZeneca (AZN.US) announced on Sept. 28. The multinational agreed with Akeso’s partner, Summit Therapeutics, to collaborate on studies of ivonescimab in combination with several AstraZeneca cancer drugs. Akeso’s shares surged 15.54% the next day and rose to HK$110.60 on Oct. 6, up about 20.2% from the pre-announcement level, as investors bet the deal could ultimately translate into revenue for the Chinese company through the terms of the licensing arrangement with Summit.

Summit gains access to AstraZeneca’s extensive R&D resources to accelerate the drug’s advance overseas. Under the licensing deal, returns for Akeso are tied to regulatory and commercial milestones, with royalties on sales in international markets. A U.S. marketing application for ivonescimab to treat EGFR-mutated non-small cell lung cancer remains under review by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

While ivonescimab has yet to be prescribed in the United States or Europe, Chinese sales are on the rise. Akeso revenue jumped 27.92% in the first half of 2026 to 1.81 billion yuan on the back of innovative drug sales, which rose 28.65% to a record 1.80 billion yuan. But Akeso still landed in the red to the tune of 447 million yuan, albeit with a narrower loss than the 588 million yuan in the first half of last year.

Akeso is trading at a price-to-sales ratio of about 17, well above the roughly 7 times for profitable drugmaker Innovent Biologics, reflecting investors’ high hopes for its future growth. As domestic sales of ivonescimab and other novel drugs expand, Akeso’s ability to generate sustained profits and steady returns from overseas licensing will be crucial to supporting its valuation.

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