Tracking the "Quantity Roshambo" of GIANT BIOGENE Collagen

The leading collagen company, GIANT BIOGENE (2367.HK), is embroiled in a controversy over ingredient addition "shortchanging."

On May 24, beauty industry KOL "Doctor Big Mouth" (Hao Yu) published a post stating that through HPLC (High-Performance Liquid Chromatography) amino acid quantification method (hereinafter referred to as "HPLC amino acid method"), he tested the Human-Like recombinant collagen essence from the brand KefuMei and found that the recombinant collagen content was only 0.0177%.

KefuMei is one of the core brands under GIANT BIOGENE.

In response, GIANT BIOGENE also stated that it has tested the relevant products, and the test results show that the collagen content is greater than 0.1%, which is severely inconsistent with the "0.0177% addition amount" circulated online, but results from other third-party tests have not yet been released.

The controversy continues to escalate, and Hao Yu has raised questions about GIANT BIOGENE's testing methods.

On May 27, Hao Yu released a video pointing out that GIANT BIOGENE's application to the platform to assist in deleting his questioning video included documents proving that they used the "Bicinchoninic Acid (BCA) method" to test collagen content, but KefuMei's related products contain "sodium polyglutamate," which would be detected by the BCA method, leading to inflated test results.

In response to Hao Yu's renewed statements, an insider from GIANT BIOGENE told Xinfeng: "We are also paying attention to this and are currently waiting for the third-party test results."

Different testing methods such as HPLC amino acid method and BCA method have their own advantages and disadvantages.

For example, while the HPLC amino acid method has advantages such as high sensitivity, the sample preparation process is complicated and requires high skill from the operator; the BCA method is simple and quick to operate, but has low sensitivity, which may affect accuracy.

This is not the first controversy for KefuMei this year.

In April, KefuMei was reported to have allegedly violated regulations by adding epidermal growth factor (EGF), which once triggered a public trust crisis for the brand.

Subsequently, the Shaanxi Provincial Drug Administration intervened in the investigation and found no violations after sampling tests.

Whether KefuMei can prove its innocence this time is also related to GIANT BIOGENE's future performance growth. As a core brand, KefuMei is expected to generate revenue of 4.542 billion yuan in 2024, contributing over 80% to total revenue.

Although the test results have not yet been finalized, this incident has already had a significant impact on GIANT BIOGENE's stock price.

As of the close on May 29, GIANT BIOGENE's total market value was HKD 72.9 billion, having evaporated HKD 12.8 billion since early May