Ab&B Bio-Tech has joined the stacked roster of drug developers queuing up to go public in Hong Kong, filing the paperwork for an IPO to fund development of vaccines that could compete with companies including GSK, Merck & Co. and Pfizer.
China-based Ab&B won approval for a quadrivalent flu vaccine in its home market in 2023. The flu shot is one of two core products that will swallow up around half of the anticipated IPO haul. Ab&B’s other core product is a rabies vaccine candidate that is scheduled to enter phase 3 in the second or third quarter. China already has 23 approved human rabies vaccines but only two that use similar tech to Ab&B’s shot.
Ab&B will go up against other local manufacturers if it launches the rabies vaccine in China but the rest of its pipeline could pit it against big Western drugmakers. The biotech has allocated around one-quarter of the expected IPO monies to advancing the rest of its portfolio.
A phase 3 trial of a 23-valent pneumococcal disease vaccine candidate is the biggest anticipated outlay in the non-core pipeline. Ab&B plans to start the study around the end of the year. If successful, the trial will position Ab&B to enter a market that is already served by Merck’s 23-valent vaccine Pneumovax and Pfizer’s 13-valent shot Prevnar 13.
Another Ab&B program puts the biotech on a collision course with GSK. A phase 1 trial of a shingles shot is set to start this quarter. Currently, GSK’s Shingrix is the only recombinant vaccine against herpes zoster, also known as shingles, approved for use in China. However, Ab&B’s chances of launching the second recombinant shot look slim, with Recbio, Lvzhu Biotech and MaxVax already in phase 3.
Ab&B has also ceded a head start to its rivals in the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine race. China is yet to approve a RSV vaccine, unlike the U.S. which has given the green light to shots from GSK, Moderna and Pfizer, but multiple candidates have reached the clinic ahead of Ab&B. A filing to test Ab&B’s vaccine candidate in humans is planned for around the middle of the year.
The biotech is seeking funding for the programs from investors who have plenty of IPOs to pick from. Ab&B is one of eight biotechs that have filed to go public in Hong Kong over the past month and one of three to file paperwork this week. The filings have swelled the backlog of biotech IPOs toward 20, with Duality Biotherapeutics, Zephyrm Bioscience and other companies that filed last year still in the queue.