(Yicai Global) June 21 -- Shares of Joinn Laboratories China rose after an insider at the supplier of clinical trial services to pharmaceutical giants and lab monkey breeder reportedly said the Chinese government has not yet lifted a ban on the import of monkeys for research purposes.

Joinn Laboratories [SHA: 603127] closed up 1.1 percent at CNY114.15 (USD17) today, after earlier gaining by as much as 2.7 percent. The broader Shanghai market dipped 0.3 percent.

The Beijing-based company’s shares tumbled by the exchange-imposed 10 percent limit yesterday as investors fretted that a government statement on June 17 announcing the end of a ban on wildlife trade that was imposed in early 2020 to halt the spread of Covid-19 would harm the firm’s monkey breeding business.

“The lifting of the ban only has to do with the economic trade of animals and has nothing to do with lab monkeys,” an insider at Joinn Labs said, according to a report published by The Paper yesterday. “When lab monkey imports are allowed again depends on future events.”

The import ban coupled with a big surge in the development of new drugs, which are tried out on non-human primates before they are used in clinical trials on human subjects, has led to a shortage of lab monkeys. There are only 30,000 in the country, according to a recent report by China Fund.

As a result, the price of lab monkeys jumped to almost CNY200,000 (USD29,874) each this month from less than CNY7,000 (USD1,046) in 2014.

Joinn Labs’ share price has surged 41 percent since April to a high of CNY127 (USD19)  on June 17 benefitting from the news that it had acquired the lab monkey resources of Yunnan Yinmore Bio-Tech and Guangxi Weimei Bio-Tech for a combined CNY1.8 billion (USD268.8 million).

Other big contract research giants such as Wuxi AppTech and Pharmaron Beijing have also started to turn their hands to monkey rearing.

Editor: Kim Taylor