ASCLETIS-B(01672): The stock price is on the verge of breaking previous highs, why is off-exchange capital choosing to adopt a wait-and-see approach?

Since October last year, the pharmaceutical sector of the Hong Kong stock market has experienced a deep retracement. The main reasons for this retracement in the early stage were the cooling of market sentiment and BD transactions falling below expectations; in the latter half, it was due to the systemic decline of the Hong Kong stock market leading to further retracement of the sector. Thus, the pharmaceutical sector of the Hong Kong stock market has completed a thorough risk release. Therefore, in the current context of intensified market volatility, the Hong Kong stock market has become an important direction for fund transfers. It can be observed that since the rebound on March 24th, the Hang Seng Healthcare Index has accumulated a range of 17.5%. This round of pharmaceutical stock rebound has driven many targets that have experienced significant retracements in the past. ASCLETIS-B (01672) is one of them. It can be observed that after reaching a temporary high of 18.64 Hong Kong dollars on February 11th, Genor Biopharma's stock price experienced a significant retracement and hit a low of 12.68 Hong Kong dollars on March 23rd, with a maximum price decline of over 30% in the range. Benefiting from this round of index rebound, Genor Biopharma's stock price gradually rose and reached 18.68 Hong Kong dollars on April 17th, just a step away from the previous high of 18.75 Hong Kong dollars in August last year. As the stock price approaches the previous high, off-market funds choose to wait and see? Breaking down this round of rebound in the pharmaceutical sector of the Hong Kong stock market, investors can easily see that the rise in innovative drugs in the Hong Kong stock market is not just a short-term pulse driven by sentiment, but the result of the resonance of short-term rebound windows and long-term industrial turning points. From a long-term perspective, the industry's core DRIVE remains unchanged and continues to strengthen: by 2025, the number of BD transactions of Hong Kong innovative pharmaceutical companies, the global market share, and penetration rate are rapidly increasing. By the first quarter of 2026, China's innovative drug out-licensing transactions exceeded $60 billion, nearly half of the total amount in 2025. In other words, for the innovative drug sector, the logic of going overseas has shifted from a short-term hot spot to a long-term trend. From the recent 2025 financial report season, it can be seen that many top innovative pharmaceutical companies in Hong Kong have achieved significant improvement in cash flow and profit, covering research and development investments effectively, and achieving substantial improvement in cash flow and profit. As top companies enter the period of performance realization, the capital market pricing logic has shifted from left-side expectations to right-side performance validation, which is the key logic for the current rebound in the pharmaceutical sector of the Hong Kong stock market. However, this does not represent collective profitability for the entire industry. According to statistics, out of 79 Hong Kong biotechnology companies, only 27 companies achieved positive net profit attributable to the parent company, showing a clear structural feature within the industry. While top companies are first in realizing innovation, many small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies are still in a high research and development investment stage, and these investments have not yet translated into commercial value on a large scale. Looking back at Genor Biopharma, it is easy to see that Genor Biopharma's stock price rebound in this round consists of two stages, namely the first stage from March 24th to March 30th, and the second stage from March 31st to the present. In the first stage, Genor Biopharma's stock price followed a more obvious "oversold rebound" logic. It can be observed that before March 24th, Genor Biopharma's stock price experienced a deep retracement, with a maximum price decline of over 30% in the range. From March 11th to March 23rd, the company's stock price even experienced a "nine consecutive days of decline." After a volume drop on March 23rd, the stock volume of Genor Biopharma the next day dropped to only 854,400 shares, with the RSI indicator falling to a low point of 13.76. This showed an internal consensus in the market, as well as a sign of weakness for the bears. At this time, the overlap rates of 70% and 90% chips reached 78.17%, to a certain extent indicating that the main funds were tightly controlling the market. Therefore, on March 24th and March 25th, Genor Biopharma saw its stock price rise by 5.34% and 4.56% respectively with only 854,400 shares and 1.24 million shares traded. Not until March 26th did Genor Biopharma see a wave of "volume and price rise," with a significant increase of 12.67% in stock price and a volume of 9.21 million shares traded. However, on March 30th, after Genor Biopharma released its financial results for 2025, the secondary market showed a slowing down of the company's stock price after a "three consecutive days of decline." From the performance perspective, Genor's revenue was only 127 million yuan, while the net loss increased by 19.6% compared to the same period. From a volume perspective, after Genor's sharp rise on March 26th, subsequent daily stock trading volumes showed a significant decline, with only 4 out of 13 trading days having volumes exceeding 3 million shares. The high-level trading volume shrinkage indicates that even though the stock price is about to break the previous high, off-market holders are still in a wait-and-see attitude, showing a lack of willingness to chase after rising prices. "Betting" on weight loss drugs, can Genor Biopharma enter the finals? The main reason for Genor Biopharma's "increased revenue but not profit" in 2025 lies in the sharp increase in research and development expenses during the period. Data shows that Genor's research and development investment for the period was 409 million yuan, an increase of 35.3% year-on-year. In addition, with 1.93 billion yuan in cash on hand, the company completed a new round of fundraising in February this year, raising a net amount of 835 million Hong Kong dollars, of which 90% of the funds were directly tied to its GLP-1 variety Phase III clinical trials worldwide. In short, Genor's current development strategy is to "bet" on weight loss drugs and send core varieties into the global finals. For Genor Biopharma, this is undoubtedly a "high-risk, high-reward" strategy. The reason Genor dares to make this "bet" is due to the core variety in its GLP-1 domain - a small molecule GLP-1R agonist ASC30. It is understood that oral GLP-1 currently has 2 technical paths, peptide and small molecule. Taking oral semaglutide (oral peptide) and Orforglipron (oral small molecule) as examples, in terms of pharmacokinetics, dosing, and production, oral small molecules have advantages. The reason why ASC30 is highly anticipated by Genor is because of its BIC potential: the drug's excitatory activity relative to Orforglipron is stronger, with a higher exposure in the body. Both ASC30 and Orforglipron are GLP-1R agonists, with in vitro cell studies showing that ASC30's excitatory activity for cAMP is about twice that of Orforglipron. In addition, PK data from multiple-dose escalation trials in humans show that under similar doses, ASC30's exposure in the body is about 2.3 times that of Orforglipron. Previous Phase IIa clinical studies have shown that ASC30 still leads in efficacy among similar drugs and has a more prominent safety advantage, which is essential for gaining a dominant position in longer-term clinical studies and real-world applications after market launch. However, ASC30 faces the challenge that the competition among oral small molecule drugs is becoming increasingly fierce, with ASC30 only ranking in the second echelon globally. According to incomplete statistics, there are currently 10 oral small molecule drugs in the global clinical stage under Genor's structure, with several early pipeline candidates advancing in clinical trials, making the competition more intense. According to the latest information, Genor's Orforglipron was approved by the FDA for market launch on April 1st this year, becoming the world's first oral small molecule non-peptide GLP-1 weight-loss drug. According to Citigroup's research report, Orforglipron is expected to achieve peak sales of over $40 billion, and it is said that Genor has no competitors in the oral small molecule GLP-1 race in the next 3 years. In other words, the commercial pressure faced by ASC30 and other oral small molecules under Genor's structure is gradually increasing with the approval of Orforglipron. Although ASC30's core advantages lie in convenience, dosing frequency, and patient tolerability at the drug level, from a commercial perspective, both Genor's commercial sales capability and the market lead of Orforglipron are obstacles that Genor and ASC30 are currently unlikely to overcome in the short term. In the secondary market, driven by the previous oversold rebound, Genor Biopharma's stock price is only a step away from the previous high, but currently the profit-taking ratio of its chips has reached 99.53%, showing a clear risk of chasing high positions in the market. Additionally, with the RSI indicator approaching 80 again, a short-term overbought signal has quietly emerged. Against this backdrop, how far Genor's stock price can rise in the short term has perhaps become an unknown variable.