Insilico Medicine Cayman TopCo, an AI drug discovery startup, jumped in its trading debut in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region as the financial hub caps its busiest month for listings in six years.

The shares rose as much as 48 percent on Tuesday. They were priced at HK$24.05 ($3.09) apiece in an initial public offering that raised $293 million.

The debut comes amid a surge in investor demand for companies in the generative artificial intelligence segment and a broader rally in Hong Kong’s healthcare shares. The Hang Seng Biotech Index has surged 65 percent this year, outperforming the benchmark’s 28 percent gain.

Insilico, which has extensive operations in the US and the Chinese mainland, alongside Canada and the Middle East, is among an early cohort of startups that use AI to improve drug discovery, historically a time-consuming and costly process. Its most advanced internal drug candidate, that treats an incurable lung disease, has shown promise in a mid-stage study.

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The pharmaceutical industry has long embraced the promise of AI in slashing research and development time and costs, though progress has been slow. Advances made, such as that by Insilico and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co — which recently passed a crucial late-stage test for its AI-selected psoriasis drug — have boosted optimism across the sector.

Insilico’s debut adds to Hong Kong’s busiest month for first-time share sales since November 2019, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. There were 25 listings in December. Other trading debuts in the city on Tuesday, including Shanghai Forest Cabin Cosmetics Group Co, also mostly rose.

Hong Kong is set to end the year with $36.6 billion in listing proceeds, a four-year high, Bloomberg-compiled data show, as companies rush to squeeze their listings into the tail end of the year. This is likely due to firms trying to get desirable valuations instead of risking fresh uncertainties arising in 2026, especially in light of some recent deals that have flopped, market observers said.

Insilico was founded in 2014. It secured $110 million in a financing round led by Value Partners Group earlier this year. Other backers include Warburg Pincus, US biotech investor OrbiMed Advisors LLC, and the venture arm of Eli Lilly & Co.

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The listing concludes a more than four-year effort to go public. It was said to have weighed an IPO in the US in 2021, and had filed for a Hong Kong listing in 2023 and again in 2024, though applications for an offering in the Asian financial hub were allowed to lapse.

Proceeds from the Hong Kong IPO will be used to fund clinical research and development of the company’s key clinical-stage pipeline drug candidates and to develop new generative AI models, among other things.

Apart from developing its own drugs, Insilico generates revenue by selling access to its AI drug discovery software, collaborating with industry peers and licensing assets to clients such as Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical Group Co and Exelixis Inc. The company reported more than $85 million in revenue in 2024.