Insider activity July 2026

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July insider transactions

In Asia, there continues to be twice as much buying as selling numbers-wise, suggesting insider optimism:

The numbers are particularly extreme in South Korea, where the number of buys is now ten times the number of sells. For June & July 2026 combined, we had 868 buy transactions, up from just 170 in the same period last year. That could be due to the KOSPI crash, or to Korea's ongoing corporate governance reforms.

The sell/buy ratio has also gone below 1.0x for China A-shares (Shanghai & Shenzhen), suggesting insider optimism. Conversely, there's net insider selling in India.

Though be aware that insider buying is just a single data point. Whether it predicts future share price returns is debatable. Insiders buy for a variety of reasons.

Five highlighted situations

I'll now go through five of the most significant insider buys in Asia, drawing upon data from Smart Insider. I've ranked them from the highest market cap to the lowest:

1. United Laboratories

United Laboratories (3933 HK — US$2.3 billion) is a Chinese drugmaker I've mentioned briefly in the past.

It's historically focused on pharmaceutical ingredients. But it has now built a portfolio of finished drugs, e.g., insulin, antibiotics, and animal drugs. Unfortunately, the antibiotics business is subject to the vagaries of supply & demand and to US import rules, which seem to change by the day. United Labs' earnings have been deteriorating recently.

What makes United Labs special at this point in time is its new drug R&D. They have 42 drugs under development, including the obesity drug UBT251. It's very similar to Eli Lilly's new retatrutide, which targets three hormone receptors simultaneously: GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon, which should make it more effective than GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic/Wegovy. United Labs' UBT251 passed its China Phase 2 trial in February 2026 with strong results: 48% of the highest-dose group lost at least 20% of their body weight after 24 weeks vs 2% in the placebo group.

In March 2025, United Labs entered a deal with Novo Nordisk, under which Novo Nordisk will have exclusive rights to sell UBT251 in all non-Greater China markets. In turn, United Labs received US$200 million up-front and up to US$1.8 billion in development and sales milestones. These are significant numbers, given that United Labs' entire market cap is US$2.3 billion. United Labs will also receive tiered royalties on all future Novo Nordisk sales of UBT251 outside China. Internationally, United Labs is currently running Phase 1b/2a obesity studies with results expected in 2027.

In July 2026, Chairman Hoi Shan Tsoi purchased US$29 million worth of shares in United Labs:

It might not have been an open-market purchase, because Smart Insider's data doesn't provide a purchase price. So I suspect it's an off-market purchase or a settlement of some sort.

The stock currently trades at 9.7x P/E with net cash representing 30% of the market cap. The big question is the likelihood that UBT251 will be successful, and how much it could contribute within Greater China and internationally. Eli Lilly's and Novo Nordisk's obesity drugs are major franchises.

Just be aware that the core antibiotics business is highly cyclical with low margins. UBT251 could contribute positively to earnings, but its success is by no means guaranteed.