"First H then A" second deal of the year: After raising nearly 1.8 billion in Hong Kong stocks, DUALITYBIO is preparing for the Sci-Tech Innovation Board

As A-share companies rush to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, reverse operations are quietly rising.

Recently, DUALITYBIO-B (9606.HK) announced plans to list on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board.

This is another project of a Hong Kong-listed company planning to return to A-shares, following the successful registration with the Securities Regulatory Commission of the first "H first, then A" deal this year, BaiAoSaiTu (2315.HK).

With the warming of the A-share IPO market, there is anticipation of more Hong Kong companies starting their journey back to A-shares.

However, DUALITYBIO-B's path to an IPO on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board may face certain controversies.

On one hand, as a biopharmaceutical company, DUALITYBIO-B currently has no approved drugs on the market and primarily generates revenue through a "License-out" model, which involves obtaining upfront payments, milestone payments, and sales shares by licensing self-developed candidate drugs. This leads to instability in its revenue.

Although DUALITYBIO-B achieved revenue of 1.227 billion yuan through licensing deals with pharmaceutical companies like GSK in the first half of 2025, it remains in a loss-making situation, with a net loss of 292 million yuan during the same period, expanding more than six times year-on-year.

Looking at several biopharmaceutical companies that are about to land on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board this year, basic profitability is in sight.

BaiAoSaiTu, which focuses on animal models, achieved a net profit of 48 million yuan in the first half of 2025; while Wuhan Heyuan Biotechnology Co., Ltd., which is about to issue its IPO, has not yet turned a profit, its core product, plant-derived recombinant human serum albumin injection, has been approved for market, with profitability imminent.

On the other hand, the necessity for DUALITYBIO-B's financing faces challenges.

In April of this year, DUALITYBIO-B listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising nearly 1.8 billion yuan, which has supplemented its R&D funding.

As of the end of June 2025, DUALITYBIO-B's cash and cash equivalents amount to nearly 3 billion yuan.

In this context, whether DUALITYBIO-B can gain market recognition for its financing plan on the Sci-Tech Innovation Board remains to be further observed