Asia drug, sanitary firms rally on bird flu worry
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-11-25 14:01

For Asian drug and sanitary companies, escalating worries over bird flu have been an unexpected boon as demand for their products boom.

Vaccine producers such as CSL of Australia, cleaning product makers including Kao Corp and home entertainment providers such as Nintendo are likely winners should a human pandemic of the deadly bird flu emerge.

"We would expect pharmaceutical companies, hospital chains and sanitary companies to benefit by fighting the pandemic," said Markus Rosgen, Citigroup head of regional strategy.

Already, Chugai Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd and its Swiss partner Roche AG have seen global demand for their anti-viral drug, Tamiflu, soar. Chugai shares have jumped nearly 70 percent this year.

Tamiflu has been recommended by the World Health Organisation as the most effective treatment available in the event of a flu pandemic.

Taiwan's Kang Na Hsiung Enterprise Co. has also seen strong demand for its masks and its shares hit a 17-month high in late October.

"Both sales and output of our masks doubled in the past two months," said Johnson Lee, a spokesman for Kang Na Hsiung.

Rockeby Biomed Ltd. , the Singapore-based maker of poultry test kits that detects traces of bird flu in 10 minutes, saw its stock more than quardruple to a high of A$0.056 early in November.

"We have received bulk orders for the kit from Turkey and Saudi Arabia," Sze-Wee Tan, Managing Director of Rockeby said from Singapore. "There is interest from distributors from the Middle East, Canada and many other countries in the East Asian region."

"We just came from Germany and demand is very strong and we are trying to cope with it... Potentially, there is upside for earnings, but at this stage it is too hard to predict."

Changes in eating habits sparked by bird flu have helped South Korean fishery companies such as Oyang Fisheries Corp., Dongwon Industries Co. and Daerim Fisheries Co., which rallied after a case was reported in North Korea in March.

RESTRAINED

So far, despite daily headlines about bird flu, Asian stock markets have been sanguine and have in fact extended their rally as investors focused on optimism about regional economies.

South Korea's KOSPI hit a record high on Thursday, Japan's Nikkei average reached a near five-year high and even Taiwan  and Hong Kong, which were hammered during the SARS outbreak in 2003, have climbed off their lows.

Until there is an outbreak of human bird flu, level heads are likely to prevail, analysts said.

"This (bird flu) is not something that can be solved right away," said Kenichi Azuma, equity strategist at Cosmo Securities Co. Ltd. "We don't know what will happen, so we cannot say that the market has fully factored in the bird flu effects."

Robert Patterson, managing director of Argo Investments Ltd. in Sydney, said that while CSL was a possible beneficiary, he was not looking to increase exposure to the stock at this stage. CSL shares have risen 42 percent this year.

"We are unsure about the timing and the severity. We are not risking that uncertainty," he said.