Description of the event
The company released its three-quarter report for 2023. In the third quarter of 2023, it achieved operating income of 311 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 37.50%; realized net profit of 51 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 144.36%; and realized net profit of -56 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 151.54%.
Incident comments
Changes in the market environment and delays in order execution. Revenue for the third quarter of 2023 was 311 million yuan, down 37.50% and 26.15% from the previous year and month on month, respectively. The significant decline in revenue was mainly due to changes in the market environment, and downstream customers (pharmaceutical companies) were cautious in using capital, requiring delays in execution of some previously signed orders. At the same time, due to a significant decrease in revenue while operating costs and period expenses increased to varying degrees, the company's net profit for the third quarter of 2023 was a loss.
Actively explore overseas markets. Against the backdrop of changes in the domestic market environment, the domestic pharmaceutical financing market is in a cooling state, and pharmaceutical companies are particularly cautious about investing in R&D pipelines. Therefore, the company is actively developing overseas markets and has already achieved initial results. Sales expenses for the first three quarters of 2023 were 58.28 million yuan, up 44% year on year. Due to increased customer recognition, 179 new customers were added in the first half of 2023, with a cumulative service of more than 2,000.
A fixed increase will concentrate on medium- to long-term production capacity development. In order to keep up with the wave of new drug innovation, build a more comprehensive and efficient drug development system, and effectively improve the service ability to undertake drug discovery projects, the company has completed the issuance of A-shares and refinancing to 15 specific targets, with a net capital raised of 990 million yuan. At present, the main construction of the “Laboratory Expansion Project for Drug Discovery and Pharmaceutical Research and Application Platform” has been completed, and the construction of a park pipeline is under way; the “North Shanghai Biomedical Research and Development Innovation Industrial Base Project” has officially commenced. This fund-raising construction project will significantly increase the company's drug discovery service capabilities, further expand the scale of existing business revenue, enhance market competitiveness and industry influence, and help the company cross the industry cycle and focus on medium- to long-term development.
We expect the company to achieve net profit of 195 million yuan, 326 million yuan, and 481 million yuan from 2023-2025. The PE corresponding to the current stock price is 54 times, 32 times, and 22 times, giving it a “buy” rating.
Risk warning
1. The popularity of domestic pharmaceutical research and development falls short of expectations;
2. The company's new production capacity fell short of expectations.