[Market Focus] Daehwa Pharmaceutical Surges as Liporaxel Nears Entry into 2 Trillion KRW Chinese Market

Daehwa Pharmaceutical is showing strong performance. This appears to be influenced by news that Liporaxel, its oral paclitaxel gastric cancer treatment, is on the verge of entering the Chinese market, which is valued at approximately 2 trillion KRW annually.

As of 9:13 a.m. on the 25th, Daehwa Pharmaceutical was trading at 16,290 KRW, up 590 KRW (3.76%) from the previous trading day.

On this day, a media outlet reported that Hahuai Biopharma, which has acquired exclusive rights for the Greater China region from Daehwa Pharmaceutical, completed its first round of discussions with Chinese drug authorities last month regarding the insurance listing of Liporaxel. The company plans to submit a drug price application next week.

The report explained that if the application for insurance drug pricing is submitted in July, the review process is expected to take about three months. As a result, Liporaxel could obtain its drug price as early as October, with plans to launch as a reimbursed product in January 2025.

Furthermore, despite Liporaxel currently being a non-reimbursed product, its advantages in terms of safety, efficacy, and medication adherence are expected to enable sales of approximately 5 to 7 billion KRW by the end of the year.

Liporaxel eliminates the need for pre-treatment and over three hours of infusion time required by conventional intravenous (IV) paclitaxel therapy, thereby improving patient convenience. The reduced administration time is expected to enhance the efficiency of hospital operations, allowing more patients to be treated and thereby improving overall treatment efficiency.

The global market for injectable paclitaxel is estimated to be worth about 5 trillion KRW. Among this, the Chinese market is known to account for 40 to 50 percent.

Daehwa Pharmaceutical secured an upfront payment of 25 million USD (approximately 33.2 billion KRW), as well as sales royalties and milestone revenues, through a license agreement signed in 2017 with RMX Biopharma (now Hahuai Biopharma).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.