SHARES of Chinese COVID-19 vaccine developer Clover Biopharmaceuticals Ltd. fell more than 10 percent on its Hong Kong trading debut Friday after raising a net US$240 million in its initial public offering (IPO).

The Chengdu-based loss- making firm, founded in 2007 by former Vanderbilt University biochemistry professor Peng Liang, has no product on sale yet.

But it has several drugs and vaccines in the pipeline, including a COVID-19 vaccine candidate which showed a 67 percent efficacy against the disease and 79 percent efficacy against the Delta variant in a large, late-stage global trial.

It plans to apply for regulatory approval of the vaccine in China, Europe and with the World Health Organization in the fourth quarter, the company said in September.

“We expect to address the significant global need for COVID-19 vaccines with our near-commercial protein-based COVID-19 vaccine candidate,” the company said in its prospectus.

Clover shares closed at HK$12.98 (US$1.67) Friday, down nearly 3 percent from its HK$13.38 IPO offer price, after dropping as low as HK$12.22 earlier in the day.

Although Clover has obtained a deal to supply up to 414 million doses of the vaccine through the global vaccine sharing scheme COVAX, Zhongtai International Securities analyst Albert Yu said it remains unclear when it would return a profit.

Clover, which reported a total loss of 912.9 million yuan (US$142.63 million) in 2020, said the majority of the IPO proceeds would be used in the research, production and commercialization of its core products. (SD-Agencies)