The board of directors of Sino Biopharmaceutical Limited announced that the Liraglutide Injection (trade name: Beilein) developed by the group has obtained approval for marketing from the National Medical Products Administration of China for the blood sugar control in adult patients with type 2 diabetes. Liraglutide is a long-acting glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) analogue with 97% of homology to human GLP-1. GLP-1 is an endogenous enteric insulinotropic hormone that enhances glucose- dependent insulin secretion from pancreatic -cells. In addition to pancreatic cells, GLP-1 receptors are widely present in organ tissues including the gastrointestinal, lung, brain, kidney and cardiovascular systems. Liraglutide prolongs the half-life of GLP-1 on the basis of retaining the physiological action characteristics of GLP-1 and achieves a good glucose-lowering effect with once-daily administration.

In addition to type 2 diabetes, liraglutide can also provide significant benefits to obese patients in weight control and treatment of cardiovascular disorders and neurological diseases. Currently, liraglutide has been included in various guides such as the American Diabetes Association (ADA) Diabetes Diagnostic and Treatment Criteria (2024 Edition), the Chinese Guidelines for the Prevention and Management of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (2020 Edition), and the Expert Consensus on the Clinical Application of Glucose-Lowering Drugs to Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus Adult Patients with Cardiac and Kidney Diseases in China. The market size of diabetes drugs in China exceeded RMB 60 billion in 2022 and is expected to break through RMB 130 billion by 2030.

The active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) production and preparation process of Beilelin is lengthy and complex with difficulty in quality control. The Group has effectively enhanced the manageability of the API process, quality and cost by developing its entire process procedure and manufacturing its key enzymes and acylation modifiers. The Group has several sets of upgraded bioreactors with sufficient production capacity to ensure consistent manufacturing of high-quality pharmaceuticals.

Besides liraglutide, the Group is developing semaglutide, which is currently in clinical phase III and is expected to bring benefit to hundreds of million of Chinese patients with diabetes and obesity.