STAT Plus: A Chinese drug maker scores a big clinical trial win with a novel diabetes therapy

By JONATHAN CHAN

JOERG SARBACH/AP

Two years ago, Hua Medicine turned to the public markets to help finance its ambitious diabetes program. “Our future success depends substantially on the success in China of our only clinical drug candidate, dorzagliatin,” the Shanghai-based pharma said in its IPO filing.

The company kept plugging away at the effort quietly until last week, when it announced the completion of its first Phase 3 trial. A positive readout sent the stock soaring 27% — and could make Hua the first company globally to win approval for a novel diabetes therapy known as a glucokinase activator, a class also being developed in the United States, India, and Japan.