Daily Brief Health Care: China Traditional Chinese Medicine, Lunit , Telix Pharmaceuticals, Actinogen Medical, SK Bioscience and more

• A weekly summary of key developments across ECM and Event-Driven names tracked by us across Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, India and Chinese ADRs.
• ECM developments: MMG (1208 HK) rights issue, Aisin (7259 JP) placement, Sanil Electric (062040 KS) IPO, and Shift Up (462870 KS) IPO.
• Event-Driven developments: China Traditional Chinese Medicine (570 HK), Shanghai Henlius Biotech (2696 HK), Midea Real Estate Holding (3990 HK), Best World International (BEST SP).  

• I tally 49 – mostly firm, mostly Asia-Pac – transactions currently being discussed and analysed on Smartkarma. Inside is a timetable of upcoming key events for each deal.
• One. new deal was discussed this week: Shanghai Henlius Biotech (2696 HK)‘s cash/scrip Offer. Midea Real Estate Holding (3990 HK) also fielded a “Partial Scheme”.
• Key updates took place on: China Traditional Chinese Medicine (570 HK), Malaysia Airports Holdings (MAHB MK), S Line Co Ltd (9078 JP), Best World International (BEST SP) .

• We discuss the end of the mandatory lock-up periods for 55 stocks in Korea in July 2024, among which 6 are in KOSPI and 49 are in KOSDAQ.
• These 55 stocks on average could be subject to further selling pressures in July and could underperform relative to the market.
• The top three market cap stocks including those of which at least 1% of outstanding shares could be sold in July include Lunit, Mezzion Pharma, and DS Dansuk.

• In this insight, we take a look at the potential index changes for ASX 200, 100, 50, and 20 in the run-up to the September 2024 index rebal event.
• In July 2024, a couple of important Australian M&A deals could close and one of them could trigger intra-review additions for ASX 100 and ASX 200.
• Separately, we see one ASX 100 change and one ASX 200 change during the September 2024 rebalance. For ASX 300, there could be 13 ADDs and 6 DELs.

Actinogen Medical announced that the prespecified biomarker subset analyses on stored plasma samples (n=72) from its previous Phase IIa XanADu study (n=185) in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has been published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease (JAD). As reported in Q422, patients with elevated baseline phosphorylated Tau-181 (pTau-181) protein (at least 6.74pg/mL), representing 34 patients (16 on Xanamem 10mg daily, 18 on placebo), showed a 0.6 mean difference (effect size) on the CDR-SB scale at 12 weeks between the placebo and treatment arms, representing a 60% relative reduction in progression. This suggests that Xanamem’s potential cognitive or disease-slowing effects may be sensitively detected by the CDR-SB endpoint, which is one of the critical endpoints in the ongoing XanaMIA Phase IIb trial (planned n=220) enrolling participants with cognitive impairment (CI) in mild to moderate AD as confirmed through elevated baseline p-Tau181. Actinogen’s next milestone will be results, expected in early Q3 CY24, from its Phase IIa XanaCIDD study of Xanamem in patients with CI and major depressive disorder.

• SK Bioscience (302440 KS) secures 60% stake in IDT Biologika, a global CDMO company with state-of-the-art manufacturing facilities in Germany, for KRW339B ($244M). The valuation seems reasonable.
• The transaction paves the way for SK bioscience to strengthen its global presence, notably in Europe and the U.S., and to diversify its business by expanding into bulk drug substances.
• Based on the existing CDMO contracts, IDT Biologika’s outlook remains positive. SK bioscience aims to more than double its revenue and stabilize operating profit margins at 20%+.