The innovative drug sector remains active, with the AACR Annual Meeting approaching. The Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug ETF ICBC(159217) helps you seize development opportunities in the innovative drug industry with one click.

In recent times, the innovative drug sector has remained active. According to Wind data, as of the early trading session on April 2, 2026, the relevant indices for the innovative drug sector have strengthened.

Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug ETF Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) (159217), Hong Kong Stock Connect Healthcare ETF ICBC (159167), STAR Market Innovative Drugs & Biopharma ETF ICBC (588860), and other related ETFs have attracted significant attention from the market.

According to statistics from Guosheng Securities, as of December 31, 2025, there are 14,088 innovative drugs globally that are in research and are actively in development. Of these, the number of original-drug products by Chinese companies is 4,751 (a share of 33.7%), exceeding the United States (4,019, 28.5%), ranking first. Since 2020, the number of new innovative drugs entering clinical trials in China has grown rapidly. In 2025, 827 original innovative drugs first entered clinical trials, representing 47.4% of the global total.

China’s inbound/outbound drug licensing (BD) for innovative drugs is also continuing to grow. On March 28, the National Medical Products Administration disclosed that in the first three months of this year, the total value of China’s innovative drug out-licensing transactions exceeded $60 billion, approaching half of the full-year figure for 2025.

On the news front, the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) will be held in San Diego, United States, from April 17 to 22, 2026. It is expected that more than 100 Chinese pharmaceutical companies will appear at AACR, bringing nearly 400 research outputs, covering multiple current popular therapeutic targets and multiple cutting-edge technologies. Great Wall Guorui Securities noted that, as an important global data release window for innovative oncology drugs, the AACR annual meeting is expected to become an important catalyst for the next phase of the innovative drug sector and further strengthen market perceptions of the global competitiveness of China’s innovative drugs.

Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug ETF ICBC (159217) tightly tracks the CSI Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug Index, aiming to reflect the overall performance of listed innovative drug industry companies within the Hong Kong Stock Connect scope. It focuses on high-growth areas such as biologics and medical R&D outsourcing, and has the characteristic of significant elasticity. According to Wind data, as of April 1, 2026, the price-earnings ratio of the CSI Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug Index (PE-TTM) is 56.62x, which is at the 65.40% historical percentile over the past 10 years, indicating certain investment value.

In addition, the CSI Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug Index has a high concentration of innovative drug companies. When classified by Shenwan level-two industries, according to Wind data as of April 1, its industry distribution focuses on the biologics and chemical pharmaceuticals sectors, together accounting for more than 90%, which helps precisely capture the growth dividend of the Hong Kong Stock Connect innovative drug market.

According to Wind data, Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug ETF ICBC (159217), as an in-exchange investment instrument that tightly tracks the CSI Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug Index, has management fee and custody fee rates of 0.40% and 0.07% respectively, helping investors capture opportunities in the innovative drug industry development at low cost with a single click. If you want to catch opportunities for innovative drugs on the STAR Market, you can consider STAR Market Innovative Drugs & Biopharma ETF ICBC (588860).

Fund fee details:

1、The in-exchange trading fees for Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug ETF ICBC and STAR Market Innovative Drugs & Biopharma ETF ICBC are subject to what the securities firms actually charge. The subscription fee is collected during the process of subscribing to the fund. When investors subscribe for fund shares, the subscription/redemption agent securities firms may charge a commission according to a standard of no more than 0.5%, which includes relevant fees charged by the securities exchange, registration institutions, and so on. The redemption fee is collected during the redemption process. When investors redeem fund shares, the subscription/redemption agent securities firms may charge a commission according to a standard of no more than 0.5%, which includes relevant fees charged by the securities exchange, registration institutions, and so on. The management fee rate of Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug ETF ICBC is 0.4% per year; the custody fee rate is 0.07% per year. The management fee rate of STAR Market Innovative Drugs & Biopharma ETF ICBC is 0.45% per year; the custody fee rate is 0.07% per year.

2、The in-exchange trading fees for Hong Kong Stock Connect Healthcare ETF ICBC are subject to what the securities firms actually charge. When investors subscribe for or redeem fund shares, the subscription/redemption agent securities firms may charge a commission according to a standard of no more than 0.3%, which includes relevant fees charged by the securities exchange, registration institutions, and so on. The management fee rate is 0.5% per year, and the custody fee rate is 0.1% per year.

Risk warning: The fund manager manages and uses fund assets in accordance with the principles of diligence and faithfulness, honesty and creditworthiness, and prudent and diligent operation, but does not guarantee that the fund will definitely make profits, nor does it guarantee a minimum return. The fund’s past performance does not indicate its future performance. The performance of other funds managed by the fund manager does not constitute a guarantee of the fund’s performance. Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug ETF ICBC, Hong Kong Stock Connect Healthcare ETF ICBC, and STAR Market Innovative Drugs & Biopharma ETF ICBC are equity funds. Risks and returns are higher than those of hybrid funds, bond funds, and money market funds. All are index funds and mainly adopt a full replication strategy, tracking the market performance of the underlying index, and have risk-return characteristics similar to those of the stock market represented by the underlying index and the stocks represented by the underlying index. In addition to investing in stock underlying the Hong Kong Stock Connect, Hong Kong Stock Connect Innovative Drug ETF ICBC and Hong Kong Stock Connect Healthcare ETF ICBC will also need to bear exchange-rate risk and specific risks arising from differences in the investment environment, investment targets, market systems, trading rules, and so on under the Hong Kong Stock Connect mechanism. Investing in an ETF will face specific features such as the risk of volatility in the underlying index, and the risk that the fund investment portfolio’s return deviates from the underlying index’s return. Investing in equity funds involves relatively large risks of return fluctuations. Funds have risk. Before investing, investors should carefully read relevant legal documents such as the “Fund Contract,” the “Prospectus,” the “Fund Product Information Summary,” and updates thereof. After fully understanding the product situation, fee structures, the charging standards of each distribution channel, and listening to the appropriateness opinions of the sales institutions, investors should choose investment products that suit their own risk tolerance for investment, and ETF investments must be made prudently.