The global glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist (GLP-1) drug market has experienced continuous expansion in recent years. In 2024, GLP-1 medications dominated global pharmaceutical sales rankings with revenues exceeding $50 billion. In just the first quarter of 2025, global transaction volume in related sectors reached $13.024 billion, approaching the previous year's total, highlighting the dramatic surge in global weight-loss drug market activity.

The GLP-1 sector continues to flourish and attract significant market attention. Recently, INNOGEN-B (02591), which focuses on GLP-1 drug development, completed its IPO listing with grey market trading surging over 270%, achieving a market capitalization exceeding HK$32.4 billion. This performance reflects capital market enthusiasm for the GLP-1 drug sector and endocrine disease treatment market.

Within Hong Kong's current GLP-1 drug sector landscape, several quality investment targets exist, with PEGBIO CO-B (02565) standing out as a rare value opportunity. The company has recently experienced a stock price rally, reaching a current market valuation of HK$9.3 billion, significantly below INNOGEN-B's HK$32.4 billion valuation, suggesting substantial growth potential while demonstrating market recognition of the company's long-term value prospects.

As a biotechnology company specializing in proprietary research and development of innovative chronic disease therapies, PEGBIO has consistently focused on cutting-edge treatment research for chronic conditions. Through over a decade of development, the company has established its proprietary high-efficiency target screening and molecular modification platform (HECTOR®).

This innovative technology platform comprises three main components: metabolic disease data collection, drug molecular design platform, and compound screening platform. The drug molecular design platform features PEGBIO's polyethylene glycol (PEG) technology, which extends compound half-life, enhances long-acting efficacy, improves compound stability, reduces immunogenicity, and decreases research costs.

Leveraging its proprietary technology platform, PEGBIO has developed various types of drug candidates. Currently, the company possesses one core product and five candidate products primarily targeting Type 2 diabetes, obesity, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, and other common chronic and metabolic diseases.

Among these, the soon-to-be-commercialized core product vepagamtide represents the most noteworthy blockbuster drug in PEGBIO's differentiated innovation pipeline.

**Reshaping Treatment Market Dynamics Through Differentiated Innovation**

Chinese Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients exhibit characteristics of high prevalence rates, low target achievement rates, and frequent comorbidity with multiple metabolic factors, typically requiring comprehensive management. GLP-1 receptor agonists (GLP-1RA) have gained prominence in domestic and international guidelines due to their multiple benefits, now listed as first-line treatment for T2DM patients, with vepagamtide being among them.

As a novel GLP-1 receptor agonist, vepagamtide is a Class 1 new drug supported by the national "Major New Drug Development" major science and technology project. Supported by the company's innovative platform technology, it utilizes polyethylene glycolation (PEG) technology modification to maintain high biological activity of GLP-1 peptides while achieving low-dose, high-efficiency objectives.

Regarding efficacy, vepagamtide demonstrates rapid onset: after just 4 weeks of treatment, the vepagamtide group showed significant glucose-lowering effects with notable reductions in glycated hemoglobin, displaying positive results. The drug requires no lengthy dose titration, quickly relieving glucose toxicity and providing patients with early confidence and treatment compliance.

Vepagamtide also achieves sustained treatment stability: clinical results show that after 52 weeks of treatment, glycated hemoglobin reduction actually increased, making vepagamtide the only GLP-1 drug maintaining efficacy without rebound during long-term treatment. This stability perfectly aligns with lifelong diabetes treatment requirements.

Notably, under similar baseline levels, vepagamtide's blood glucose target achievement rates match or exceed international first-line products, providing patients with practical and controllable treatment objectives.

Compared to competitors, vepagamtide achieves synergistic enhancement of "glucose control-cardioprotection-metabolic improvement" multiple clinical benefits. First, in personalized weight reduction, for high BMI patients, vepagamtide's 52-week average weight loss effect surpasses similar products, precisely achieving guideline-advocated weight management. Second, vepagamtide provides comprehensive cardiovascular and renal protection. Clinical data shows the drug significantly reduces total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein, and triglycerides, with superior effects in dyslipidemic populations. Its unique feature lies in simultaneously significantly reducing both systolic and diastolic blood pressure, filling the gap left by competitors that primarily focus on systolic pressure reduction. Finally, vepagamtide achieves mechanistic breakthrough by rapidly improving β-cell function and insulin sensitivity, potentially enabling diabetes remission.

Regarding safety and treatment compliance, the drug offers pre-filled device one-step injection without complex titration, greatly benefiting elderly patients and those with comorbidities. Its excellent safety profile has been clinically validated, achieving optimal "benefit-risk" ratio.

From a market perspective, China, as the world's second-largest pharmaceutical market, simultaneously hosts the world's largest diabetic population (projected to reach 164 million by 2030) and overweight population (projected to reach 200-250 million by 2030), becoming a key strategic battleground for global pharmaceutical giants and domestic enterprises.

As market potential continues to unfold, PEGBIO is positioned to leverage its differentiated innovation capabilities and core product vepagamtide's best-in-class attributes to reshape China's T2DM treatment market landscape and accelerate realization of its intrinsic value.