“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”, April 22 (Reporter Zheng Bingxun) Due to increased market competition, Chengda Biotech (688739.SH), the leading domestic rabies vaccine leader, will continue to experience a decline in performance in 2023.

According to the 2023 annual report of Chengda Biotech, it achieved annual revenue of 1.75 billion yuan, a slight decrease of 3.58% year on year; net profit to mother was 466 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 34.75%. Revenue and net profit growth rates for the same period last year were -13.08% and -20.00%, respectively.

As a leading company on the racetrack, human rabies vaccine has always been Chengda Biotech's main source of revenue. In 2020-2022, Chengda Biotech achieved revenue of 1,996 billion yuan, 2,088 billion yuan, and 1,815 billion yuan respectively. Of these, revenue from human rabies vaccine was 1,956 billion yuan, 2,087 billion yuan, and 1,765 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 98.01%, 99.94%, and 97.25% of revenue.

Entering 2023, this share is still absolute. The annual revenue from human rabies vaccine was 1,643 billion yuan, accounting for about 93.86% of overall revenue.

In terms of batch issuance and sales, Chengda Biotech has always been in a leading position in the country.

According to Insight Consulting's statistics, based on batch issuance volume and sales revenue in 2021, Chengda Biotech's batch issuance volume of “human rabies vaccine (Vero cells)” was about 39.9 million doses, far higher than Rongan Biotech's 14.2 million doses, which ranked first among the nine companies in the racetrack that year, accounting for about 50.8% of the total number of batches issued in the market, and sales accounted for about 45.5% of the market share.

Meanwhile, in 2021, China issued 78.5 million doses of rabies vaccine in batches, making it the largest batch of vaccines issued in China. Insight Consulting estimates that the human rabies vaccine market in China will also increase from 5.6 billion yuan in 2021 to 14.8 billion yuan in 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 11.4%.

Needless to say, human rabies vaccines have broad market prospects, but because of this, more companies are joining one after another, boosting the level of competition in the market.

Insight consulting data also shows that as of mid-September 2022, there are 20 clinical-stage human rabies vaccines under development in China, and 17 of them are in phase III clinical trials or advanced stages. In this regard, Chengda Biotech also revealed that as of 2023, the number of domestic companies producing rabies vaccines has increased to 11, and the market is facing a situation where supply exceeds demand.

In the same year, the production volume and sales volume of Chengda Biotech's human rabies vaccine were 24.6899 million and 24.4711 million, respectively. The production and sales rate was 99.11%, and sales volume decreased by 9.71% year on year.

However, Chengda Biotech told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” reporter, “In 2023, the company's human rabies vaccine was issued in 256 batches, with 5.69 million batches, continuing to maintain its leading position in the human rabies vaccine market.” According to the company, apart from Chengda Biotech, rival companies such as Ningbo Rongan Biology, Changchun Zhuoyi, Liaoning Yisheng, and Kanghua Biotech mostly issue human rabies vaccines in batches.

It is worth mentioning that with the domestic market being further divided, Chengda Biotech's human rabies vaccine's share in overseas markets has increased in recent years. Among them, in the first half of 2023, the sales revenue of this product in the international market increased by 20.15% year-on-year. Furthermore, through overseas distributors, Chengda Biotech has covered its marketing network to more than 30 countries and regions along the “Belt and Road”, such as Thailand, India, Egypt, and the Philippines.

Furthermore, as another marketed vaccine product of Chengda Biotech, the B vaccine is also currently the only inactivated vaccine produced domestically. As the market penetration rate increases, it is gradually contributing more to Chengda's performance.

Data show that in 2023, Chengda Biotech achieved sales revenue of 107 million yuan, an increase of 114.86% over the previous year, accounting for 6.14% of overall revenue, an increase of 3.4 percentage points over 2022. In the same period, sales of inactivated hepatitis B vaccine were 670,000 units, an increase of 64.52% over the previous year.