(Yicai) Nov. 24 -- Vaccine maker Zhifei Biological Products plans to acquire Chenan Biopharmaceutical to start making metabolic disease treatments similar to Ozempic, Novo Nordisk’s hit diabetes and obesity drug.

Chenan will become a wholly-owned unit, which will Zhifei use to enter the field of therapeutic biopharmaceuticals, the Chongqing-based firm said yesterday, without disclosing the cost of the acquisition. The pair is already linked as Chenan is controlled by Zhifei’s owner.

Zhifei’s stock price [SHE: 300122] rose 1.4 percent to CNY66.12 (USD9.24) in Shenzhen today, after surging by as much as 7.7 percent in the morning.

Founded in 2015, Chenan has six drugs that have entered clinical trials. Its liraglutide, a glucagon-like peptide-1 derivative, and semaglutide, the active substance in Ozempic, have great potential in treating type 2 diabetes and obesity.

Zhirui Investment holds an 85 percent stake in Chongqing-based Chenan and Zhang Gaoxia owns the rest. Chenan’s legal representative, Jiang Lingfeng, is the vice chairman of Zhifei, son of Zhifei’s de facto controller, and the legal representative of Zhirui.

Zhifei is a leading developer of vaccines and biological products in China. The company is an agent of some human papillomavirus and pneumonia vaccines of Merck and GSK.

From January to September, it had revenue of CNY39.3 billion (USD5.5 billion), up 41 percent from a year earlier, and its net profit jumped 16 percent to CNY6.5 billion (USD909 million), according to the firm’s third-quarter earnings report.

Editor: Emmi Laine