(Yicai Global) Nov. 9 -- Shares in Chongqing Zhifei Biological Products surged after it announced today that its second-generation Covid-19 vaccine has just started clinical trials in China and Uzbekistan.

Zhifei Biological [SHE: 300122] gained by 4.3 percent after the news before sliding back and closing up 1.6 percent at CNY99.44 (USD13.72). The stock price has still weakened nearly 20 percent this year.

The second-generation recombinant protein vaccine is being jointly developed by Anhui Zhifei Longcom Biopharmaceutical and the Institute of Microbiology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and it will work on the Omicron and Delta strains, Zhifei Biological announced via its WeChat account today. Compared with the first-generation vaccine, it can elicit a broader and stronger immune response, the company said.

Zhifei Biological’s first-generation Covid vaccine obtained emergency use authorization from the Chinese regulator in March last year and conditional market approval in March this year, the Chongqing-based firm said, adding that more than 100 million people in the world have now been vaccinated with its first-generation product.

Uzbekistan was the first overseas country in which Zhifei Biological carried out phase-III clinical trials of the first-generation vaccine, it added.

As vaccinations became more widespread, sales of Zhifei Biological’s first-generation vaccine declined sharply in the first half from the same period last year, and the company has been accelerating the development of new vaccines to cope with mutating strains, the company said in its previous interim report.

Zhifei Biological’s revenue grew 27 percent from a year earlier to CNY27.8 billion (USD3.8 billion) in the first nine months, but net profit declined 33 percent to CNY5.6 billion (USD772.6 million), according to its latest financial results.

Editor: Tom Litting