Article: Billionaire Li Ka-shing’s biotech unit hopes for new cancer drug approvals, expands sales army in China amid stock rally in London

Image for Article: Billionaire Li Ka-shing’s biotech unit hopes for new cancer drug approvals, expands sales army in China amid stock rally in London

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Hutchison China MediTech (Chi-Med) expects regulatory approval in China for its cancer drugs surufatinib by year-end and savolitinib by mid-2021. The company plans to triple its sales and marketing team to over 1,000 people by 2023 in anticipation of these launches.

Chi-Med's stock has rallied 70% in London over the past six months, significantly outpacing the benchmark index. The company's in-house drug discovery team currently has nine candidates in clinical studies.

The main topics covered are: drug approval timelines, sales force expansion, stock performance, and in-house research and development.

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https://www.scmp.com/business/companies/article/3103842/billionaire-li-ka-shings-biotech-unit-hopes-new-cancer-drug?utm_source=rss_feed

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Science & Research - South China Morning Post

Published Date

2020-10-01 10:30

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2026-03-04 14:32

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2026-03-04 15:13

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Billionaire Li Ka-shing’s biotech unit hopes for new cancer drug approvals, expands sales army in China amid stock rally in London
- Hutchison China MediTech hopes to receive the green light to market surufatinib by year-end, savolitinib by mid-2021, CEO Hogg says
- Stock has rallied 70 per cent in London over the past six months, outpacing benchmark index’s 8.5 per cent advance
Hutchison China MediTech (Chi-Med), whose stock has surged 70 per cent in London over the past six months, expects to receive approvals to sell its endocrine and lung cancer drugs in China by June next year, chief executive officer Christian Hogg said.
The cancer drugs manufacturing and innovation unit of billionaire Li Ka-shing‘s conglomerate CK Hutchison, plans to triple the size of its marketing team over the next three years in anticipation of the green light, he added. That will take the headcount from current 350 to 450 by the end of this year, and to more than 1,000 by 2023.
“Some local competitors have many thousands of salespeople, but we are no slouchers,” Hogg told a SCMP Research webinar earlier this week. “We have full understanding on running teams across China, which is a highly fragmented economy. It is not easy, you have to have military-style operations.”
SCMP Research: China Healthcare Report 2020
Having created and studied thousands of chemical compounds, its drugs discovery team of 250 scientists has put nine candidates under clinical studies. It does all discovery work in-house, except for certain toxicity tests.