The mid-term report shows a year-on-year revenue growth of over 900%. A deep dive into the "investment certainty" behind the hard-core innovative technology of AB&B BIO-TECH-B

According to the latest macro assessment released by Goldman Sachs in August, market expectations for a Federal Reserve rate cut in September have risen, which is expected to attract more global capital into the Hong Kong pharmaceutical sector that is undergoing valuation adjustments. Recent updates to domestic pharmaceutical policies have also signaled an optimization of the payment system, which is likely to further unleash the commercialization potential of high-quality pharmaceutical companies. Under multiple favorable catalysts, this round of valuation recovery in Hong Kong pharmaceuticals is bound to be a highly certain long-term process.

Against this backdrop, pharmaceutical companies with a mature integrated structure of research, production, and sales, as well as international development capabilities, are expected to continue to attract market attention. Taking Zhonghui Biological-B (02627) as an example, since its listing, the company has gained high recognition in the capital market for its systematic advantages formed through innovative research and development, overseas registration, quality control, and market commercialization.

Zhitong Finance APP observed that on August 11, Zhonghui Biological was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, with its stock price soaring nearly 170% on the same day, setting a record for the highest first-day increase of a new Hong Kong stock in 2025. Just half a month after its listing, the company's market capitalization has successfully surpassed HKD 20 billion.

In fact, the continuous rise in Zhonghui Biological's stock price is also the most vivid manifestation of the current bull market for innovative drugs in Hong Kong. Although there have been recent technical fluctuations, considering the company's latest disclosed mid-2025 performance, with revenue increasing by over 900% year-on-year, there is still significant room for its stock price and market capitalization to continue rising.

Deep Dive into the "Investment Certainty" Behind Hardcore Innovative Technologies

The current performance of the capital market essentially reflects the phased achievements of Zhonghui Biological's deep cultivation of innovative vaccine strategies. The key carrier among these is the core product that has gradually gained commercial validation—the quadrivalent influenza virus subunit vaccine HuiErKangXin®.

On August 28, Zhonghui Biological announced its mid-2025 performance. During the reporting period, Zhonghui Biological achieved revenue of 71.123 million yuan, a substantial year-on-year increase of 919.25%. This indicates that the significant clinical value and product strength of the company's core product HuiErKangXin® have been recognized by the end market.

In comparison with peers, recently, Wantai Biological, Kanglaite, and Kangtai Biological have released their semi-annual reports for 2025. Among them, Wantai Biological reported a year-on-year revenue decline of 38.25% and a net profit decline of 155.30%; Kanglaite has no vaccine products on the market and is in a loss-making state, expecting to continue losing money from January to September this year; Kangtai Biological reported a year-on-year revenue increase of 15.81% but a net profit decline of 77.30%.

It is evident that compared to the "performance winter" still faced by peer companies, Zhonghui Biological has achieved significant growth against the trend. A key factor in this is its differentiated technological advantage in high-end vaccine products.

As the first and currently the only approved quadrivalent influenza virus subunit vaccine in China, HuiErKangXin® has undergone significant upgrades based on traditional virus split vaccines, retaining only the highly pure hemagglutinin (HA) and neuraminidase (NA) antigen components, offering comprehensive protection, high purity of component antigens, and low risk of adverse reactions. Clinical trial results indicate that HuiErKangXin® can induce a strong immune response, helping to enhance immune efficacy and better combat influenza viruses. Its serum protection rates against H1N1, H3N2, BV, and BY virus strains are 96.56%, 97.98%, 89.41%, and 95.88%, respectively, all exceeding the EU standard of 70.0% Moreover, its safety results also outperform those of the split vaccine control group.

On the third day after its listing, Zhonghui Biological once again issued positive news regarding the commercialization of the vaccine product. On August 13, Zhonghui Biological announced that its quadrivalent influenza virus subunit vaccine passed the preliminary review for this year's national commercial health insurance innovative drug catalog, making it the only vaccine product on this list.

In addition, another core product of the company—the research and development of a lyophilized human rabies vaccine (human diploid cells)—has also attracted significant market attention. This vaccine is developed using human diploid cells, which the World Health Organization recommends as one of the safest cell culture substrates for producing viral vaccines. Due to its potential for greater safety, this vaccine is expected to be a good alternative to the mainstream Vero cell rabies vaccines. The company completed the Phase I clinical trial of this research product in October 2024 and plans to start Phase III clinical trials in the third quarter of 2025.

As the development of this type of vaccine enters its later stages, the certainty of its commercialization is continuously increasing, and it is expected to continue to enhance the company's profits alongside Hui Er Kang Xin® after its future market launch.

Perfecting the integration of research, production, and sales to solidify the development foundation

In fact, in addition to scaling the commercialization of core products, Zhonghui Biological has also been committed to perfecting its integrated closed loop of research, production, and sales, continuously solidifying its development foundation.

On the research and development front, Zhonghui Biological confirmed that its R&D investment reached 98.848 million yuan in the first half of this year, with strong revenue growth and cash flow reserves providing robust support for the company's innovative R&D. Under strong R&D efforts, the company is currently accelerating differentiated innovation, and the value of its Biopharma is further validated.

According to Zhitong Finance APP, in addition to the two core products mentioned above, Zhonghui Biological's product pipeline also includes 11 other research vaccines, such as the trivalent influenza virus subunit vaccine, 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine, recombinant herpes zoster vaccine (CHO cells), and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, among others. These research vaccines cover multiple disease areas, forming a product R&D pattern of "stepwise order, key breakthroughs, and multiple product reserves."

It is worth mentioning that on August 15, Zhonghui Biological's IND application for a new class of drug "recombinant respiratory syncytial virus vaccine (CHO cells) (adjuvant)" was officially approved in collaboration with its subsidiary.

This vaccine innovatively applies big data analysis to empower drugability research, using proprietary innovative technology and employing a pre-F antigen sequence with highly stable characteristics. Preclinical studies show that this vaccine performs positively across various indicators, not only stimulating the body to produce high-titer neutralizing antibodies against RSV A2 and B types but also simultaneously activating a high level of cellular immune response.

This vaccine has also received clinical approval from the U.S. FDA, becoming the company's first product to achieve dual reporting and simultaneous clinical approval in both China and the U.S. This not only indicates that the company's R&D capabilities have been recognized by the industry but also marks another milestone breakthrough in the development of the company's heavyweight drugs.

Furthermore, the commercialization potential of this vaccine is also enormous. Its pre-F antigen structure has excellent thermal stability, does not require lyophilization, and can be stored in liquid form under refrigerated conditions of 2-8°C for long periods, optimizing the formulation production process, reducing production costs, and greatly enhancing the accessibility and convenience of the product, laying a solid foundation for subsequent commercialization and is expected to bring continuous growth momentum and considerable market returns to Zhonghui Biological To effectively ensure the continuous expansion of the market and accelerate the efficiency and production capacity of core varieties and subsequent products, Zhonghui Biological is actively promoting capacity construction.

Currently, the company's first production park located in Taizhou, Jiangsu, has a building area of over 48,000 square meters, equipped with three GMP-compliant production lines, including influenza vaccine production lines, quadrivalent and trivalent influenza virus subunit vaccine production lines, and rabies vaccine production lines, as well as a pneumococcal vaccine production line. The company's second influenza vaccine production line is also expected to start production by the end of 2026, with ample capacity reserves.

In terms of the commercial team and market layout, relying on its own sales and marketing team, Huierkangxin® has completed market access in 30 provinces across the country and has been selected by over 1,100 district and county-level disease control centers, with a product qualification rate and batch approval rate both reaching 100.0%.

At the same time, the company's international layout is also advancing simultaneously, efficiently releasing production capacity by leveraging the staggered influenza seasons in South America and some Southeast Asian countries compared to China. Last year, Huierkangxin® obtained registration certificates and marketing licenses in Macau, and the registration process in the Philippines has been initiated. In the next two years, the company plans to submit registration applications to multiple countries and regions, including Thailand, Uruguay, Indonesia, and Canada, gradually forming a global sales network.

In addition to accelerating registration and product launch in overseas markets, Zhonghui Biological is also seeking strategic acquisition opportunities. According to Zhito Finance APP, in Zhonghui Biological's IPO fundraising plan, 63.6% of the funds are primarily aimed at global registration of core products, but a strategic acquisition redundancy of over 10% of the funds is also reserved for horizontal integration.

Although the company's stock price and market value have seen impressive growth since its listing, the current valuation still does not fully reflect its expectations for acquisitions in Southeast Asian biopharmaceutical production capacity—especially under the catalysis of Indonesia's localization policy for vaccines (requiring 40% localization of foreign pharmaceutical companies' production capacity by 2024), acquiring regional CDMO companies is expected to shorten the market development cycle by 3-5 years.

In the first half of this year, revenue surged by over 900%, indicating that Zhonghui Biological's current innovative vaccine development and commercialization operation model is maturing. It can be anticipated that in the future, with the gradually improving innovative research and development layout and continuously explored international commercialization capabilities, the integrated competitive advantage of research, production, and sales will become a strong driving force for the continuous release of Zhonghui Biological's intrinsic value