HK Stock Connect Insight | METIS TECHBIO-P (07666.HK): Southbound stake rises to 5.94% after Stock Connect inclusion on Sept 7

NewTimeSpace News: METIS TECHBIO-P (07666.HK) published the October monthly return on 4 November, in which the statutory share capital, issued shares and treasury shares all remained unchanged during the month, with issued H Shares at the end of October standing at 1,083,110,111 and domestic unlisted shares at 99,587,739, and the number of treasury shares at zero, and the company confirming that its H Shares comply with the 15% minimum public float requirement stipulated at listing.

On 19 October, the company published a voluntary announcement announcing a strategic collaboration with Eli Lilly and Company, focused on the research and discovery of novel lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery solutions aimed at achieving tissue-specific delivery of therapeutic modalities; under the terms of the agreement, the company will receive an upfront payment of over US10 million and is eligible for development, regulatory and commercial milestone payments totalling up to approximately US1.1 billion, together with tiered royalties at a single-digit percentage of the annual net sales of collaboration products.

In the Hong Kong market, the shares of METIS TECHBIO-P have retreated steadily from their post-listing highs. The company listed on the Main Board of the Stock Exchange on 13 May 2026 at an offer price of HK10.50, offering 201,229,000 H Shares globally for gross proceeds of about HK2,113 million and net proceeds of about HK1,993 million; it closed at HK23.800 on its first trading day, 126.67% above the offer price, having traded as high as HK29.980 intraday that day. The highest close since listing was HK25.240 on 14 May, and the decline continued thereafter, with the lowest close since listing of HK9.650 on 30 July, when the shares touched an intraday low of HK9.460. As at 11:40 on 12 November, the shares stood at HK$11.160, up 0.18%.

On southbound holdings, the company was admitted to the Hang Seng Composite Index following the quarterly review results published by Hang Seng Indexes Company on 21 August, with the changes implemented after the close on 4 September and taking effect on 7 September, when the stock was added to the Stock Connect list, and the company had published a voluntary announcement on 23 August confirming the inclusion. According to Choice data, southbound holdings started at 17,419,000 shares on their first disclosure on 9 September, equal to 1.60% of issued H shares, and have built up rapidly since, with the largest single-day net addition of 11,619,500 shares recorded on 10 September, taking holdings to 29,038,500 shares that day. Southbound holdings reached a period high of 65,483,000 shares on 13 October, or 6.04%, before easing back and stabilising, and stood at 64,361,500 shares, or 5.94%, on 11 November, an increase of 46,942,500 shares over 9 September.

On the share register, according to the Allotment Results Announcement published on 12 May, 18 cornerstone investors hold 110,415,000 H Shares in aggregate, with the lock-up period ending on 12 November 2026 and the shares becoming tradable from 13 November.

On institutional research, Guohai Securities noted in a research report published on 1 November 2026 that traditional LNP systems tend to show strong hepatic distribution after administration, making delivery to extrahepatic tissues and specific cells an important direction of research, and that the company, by relying on its NanoForge platform and combining generative artificial intelligence with high-throughput experimental validation, is advancing novel lipid discovery and LNP formulation optimisation to provide a technical foundation for the development of tissue- and cell-specific delivery solutions; the firm also noted that the company has entered into a strategic collaboration with Livzon Pharmaceutical, and has signed a joint venture agreement between its subsidiary JiTai Life and Joinn Laboratories to advance AI drug delivery technology commercialisation and the build-out of an mRNA R&D and manufacturing platform respectively, adding to the multi-party cooperation the company has established across delivery technology R&D and industrialisation.