Good News on Listing | Frost & Sullivan Assists Koi Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited to Successfully List on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (2171.HK)

Kojo Pharmaceutical Holdings Limited (hereinafter referred to as 'Kojo Pharma') successfully listed on June 18, 2021, with a global issuance of 94.75 million shares at a price of HK$32.80 per share, raising approximately HK$3.11 billion. Frost & Sullivan (Frost & Sullivan, hereinafter referred to as 'Frost & Sullivan') provided exclusive industry advisory services for Kojo Pharma's listing, and we hereby warmly congratulate them on their successful listing.

During this listing process in Hong Kong, Frost & Sullivan mainly undertook the following tasks: helping the company accurately and objectively understand its positioning in the target market, using objective market data to discover, support, and highlight the company's competitive advantages, assisting the company, investment banks, and other intermediaries in completing the writing of relevant parts of the prospectus (such as overview, competitive advantages and strategy, industry overview, business, and other important sections), helping the company communicate with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and investors, assisting investors in quickly understanding the market ecosystem and competitive landscape, and assisting the company in completing feedback on various industry-related issues from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Cell immunotherapy is an immunotherapy that involves injecting immune cells (mainly T cells) into patients to treat cancer. The main types of cell immunotherapy include CAR-T, TCR-transduced T cells (TCR-T), tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL), and natural killer (NK) cell therapies.

CAR-T cells are genetically modified T cells equipped with chimeric antigen receptors (CAR), which enable T cells to recognize and eliminate cells expressing the corresponding antigen. Autologous CAR-T cells are produced by removing T cells from the patient's blood and transfecting them with a viral vector carrying plasmids encoding the CAR structure to express the required CAR.

In addition to the general advantages associated with cell immunotherapy, CAR-T therapy also has the following specific advantages:

Treatment Potential:Since some patients may not respond to treatment due to drug resistance or are more prone to recurrence, tumor treatment is challenging. Clinical trials have shown that CAR-T therapy can overcome many of these challenges through its mechanism of action and is expected to completely eradicate cells expressing tumor-related antigens, including tumor cells and tumor stem cells, thereby producing therapeutic effects. Therefore, CAR-T cell therapy may become an effective treatment for patients who have failed previous treatments.

Living Cells:CAR-T cells are living cells when injected into the patient's body and can proliferate within the patient's body. Compared with other chemical drugs or biologics that are metabolized by the patient and cleared from the body relatively quickly after ingestion, CAR-T cells can be maintained and remain effective for weeks or months within the patient's body, thereby reducing the need for multiple doses of treatment and potentially reducing less favorable side effects, resulting in better treatment tolerance.

Adaptability:CAR-T cell therapy has shown its potential to be more targeted at specific diseases or customized according to desired functions than common cancer treatment methods. For example, CAR-T cells can adapt to a variety of tumor-related targets by fusing with specially designed CAR structures, thus more accurately targeting tumor cells expressing different targets. In addition, through gene editing, regulating gene expression, synthetic biology, etc., CAR-T cells are designed to overexpress a number of selected genes or produce additional parts or desired molecules, enabling CAR-T cells to produce more effective anti-tumor effects with improved permeability through tumor masses and increased characteristics of T cell therapy, and potentially reducing treatment costs without other expensive treatments.

Currently, there are no CAR-T cell therapies approved by the National Medical Products Administration for marketing in China. In the United States, five CAR-T products have been approved by the US FDA for marketing: Kymriah, Yescarta, Tecartus, and Breyanzi, all targeting CD19 and BCMA (also known as ide-cel or bb2121). Since the first two CAR-T products were approved in 2017, the global CAR-T market has been expanding rapidly. Due to the potential of CAR-T cell therapy to reduce unmet medical needs in the treatment of blood malignancies and the increased affordability of such treatments, the global CAR-T market size has grown from $0.1 billion in 2017 to $7 billion in 2019, with an estimated global CAR-T cell therapy market sales value reaching $66 billion by 2024, a compound annual growth rate of 55.0% from 2019 to 2024. By 2030, the global CAR-T market size is expected to reach $218 billion, with a compound annual growth rate of 22.1% from 2024 to 2030.

Currently, the National Medical Products Administration of China has not approved any CAR-T cell therapies for marketing. Two types of CAR-T cell therapies targeting CD19 have entered the NDA submission stage. It is estimated that the first batch of CAR-T cell therapies will be approved by the National Medical Products Administration in 2021 and launched in China, with an estimated market size of RMB 2 billion in China for CAR-T therapies in 2021. It is expected that the market size of CAR-T cell therapies in China will grow to RMB 53 billion by 2024 and further to RMB 289 billion by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 45.0% from 2022 to 2030.

Frost & Sullivan integrates 60 years of global consulting experience, serving the booming Chinese market with dedication for 23 years. With a global perspective, we help clients accelerate their business growth, achieve industry growth, innovation, and leading benchmarks. The health industry is one of the core areas of focus for Frost & Sullivan. Over the past sixteen years, the Frost & Sullivan healthcare team has provided financing and financial advisory services, IPO industry advisory services, strategic advisory services, management advisory services, etc., for hundreds of outstanding domestic and international biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, healthcare services, and internet healthcare enterprises. Successful listing cases include: Zhaoke Ophthalmology (6622.HK), Nature Medicine (UPC.NASDAQ), Sino Biologics (6600.HK), Zhaoyan New Medicine (6127.HK), Novogene Health (6606.HK), Tianyan Pharmaceutical (ADAG.NASDAQ), Beikang Medical (2170.HK), Jianbimiao Miao (2161.HK), Minimally Invasive Cardiac Therapy (2160.HK), Ruili Medical Beauty (2135.HK), Jiaosisi Pharmaceutical (1167.HK), Heplim Pharmaceutical (2142.HK), JD Health (6618.HK), Deqi Pharmaceutical (6996.HK), Rongchang Biotech (9995.HK), WuXi AppTec (2126.HK), Sino-BioNTech (2096.HK), Yundian New Energy (1952.HK), Jiahe Biotech (6998.HK), Regeneron Biologics (9995.HK), Codelco Biologics (9939.HK), Peijia Medical (9996.HK), Kangfang Biotech (9926.HK), Novogene Oncology (9969.HK), OncoMed (9688.HK), Ophthalmic Sciences (1477.HK), Yongtai Biotech (6978.HK), Heparin Pharmaceuticals (9989.HK), Pioneering Biologics (9939.HK), Peijia Medical (9996.HK), Kangfeng Biotech (9926.HK), Novogene Oncology (9969.HK)

Since the first batch of companies on the Sci-tech Innovation Board were listed in July 2019, Frost & Sullivan reports have also been widely cited in the prospectuses of leading Sci-tech Innovation Board listed companies in the industry, including: Huaxi Biotech (688363.SH), Junshi Biotech (688180.SH), Zhejiang Oncology (688266.SH), BeiGene (688177.SH), Shenzhou Cells (688520.SH), etc., and are considered the most powerful, professional, and influential industry research institutions in the industry. We hope to work with enterprises to understand industry trends, seize development opportunities, jointly promote innovation and upgrading of China's health industry, and build a healthy future.