Biomedical sector leads decliners in China stock markets

China’s equities markets closed lower on Monday, with falls in biomedical, brewing and electronics sectors leading the losses for the day.

Dragged by the biomedical companies, the Shanghai Composite Index reversed their moderate gains in the morning trading session to finish lower by 0.16 percent, or 4.54 points, at 2869.05. The biomedical sector saw broad-based losses, with the sub-index shedding 2.89 percent.

The Shenzhen Component Index dipped by 1.23 percent to 9181.94 points, while the Nasdaq-style ChiNext enterprise board posted a big loss of 2.19 percent, finishing at 1559.64.

ChongQing ZhiFei Biological Products, a listed hi-tech enterprise engaged in developing, producing and marketing vaccines, saw its shares plunge by the daily maximum cap of 10 percent to close at 37.18 yuan.

Great Wall Securities noted that the recent vaccine scandal around Changchun Changsheng Bio-tech Co, a major vaccine producer in China, will continue to weigh on the biomedical industry in the near term.

The incident may lead to an increasingly stringent regulatory system, which may cause more problems to be exposed from some pharmaceutical enterprises, industry insiders said. Analysts believe that this will exert "great impact" on both the profits and valuations of biomedical companies in the second half of 2018.