“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily”, May 16 (Reporter Zheng Bingxun) As one of the leading companies in the POCT (immediate testing) field, An Xu Biotech (688075.SH) is also trying to make up for the decline in performance after the COVID-19 pandemic subsided. Chairman and general manager Ling Shisheng said at the performance briefing held on the 16th, “After the demand for COVID-19 testing declined, the company's products are currently mainly drug testing products and infectious disease testing products.”

In terms of revenue, An Xu Biotech achieved revenue of 503 million yuan in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 91.84%, and net profit to mother of 142 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 95.35%. After entering 2024, there was an improvement. Revenue for the first quarter was 129 million yuan, a slight increase of 6.53% over the previous year, and net profit to mother was 70.198 million yuan, an increase of 38.09% over the previous year. However, revenue for the first quarter was 187 million yuan compared to Q4 revenue in 2023, a decrease of about 31% over the previous quarter.

Currently, An Xu Biotech has POCT products covering eight major testing fields, including infectious diseases, drugs, chronic diseases, pregnancy, tumors, myocardium, biochemistry, and allergens. Before the epidemic, drug testing was An Xu Biotech's biggest source of revenue. With the beginning of the epidemic, the infectious disease testing business began to seize the limelight.

In 2020-2022, infectious disease testing achieved revenue of 1,011 billion yuan, 1,346 billion yuan, and 5.851 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 84.24%, 84.72%, and 94.90% of overall revenue. In 2019, infectious disease testing accounted for only 14.81% of revenue, and the highest-grossing drug testing business accounted for 71.73% of the overall revenue.

Ling Shisheng did not provide detailed answers about exactly what kind of revenue drug testing received after the pandemic and how to drive revenue growth in non-COVID-19 businesses.

From the perspective of long-term development, An Xu Biotech will need to address at least two aspects of single addiction in the future, including excessive reliance on overseas income and a single dependency on product income.

Taking 2023 as an example, An Xu Biotech's revenue from overseas was 458 million yuan, accounting for 91.06% of total revenue. At the peak of the epidemic, this ratio even reached 99.14% at one point. Ling Shisheng said bluntly that in recent years, the company's overseas market sales have generally accounted for more than 90%. International companies will stabilize existing markets and actively explore emerging markets. According to information, Anxu Biotech has now set up subsidiary companies in the US, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc.

However, Ling Shisheng also said that while developing the international market, An Xu Biotech has set up various branches in China, including Nanjing, Xi'an, Chengdu, and Shenzhen, covering the core regions of the domestic medical market. In 2023, Anxu Biotech's domestic revenue was 44.9948 million yuan, accounting for 8.94% of total revenue, an increase of 8.08 percentage points over the same period in 2022. However, Ling Shisheng did not disclose which areas the domestic market will focus on.

Regarding single product dependency, Anxu Biotech's revenue in 2023 came entirely from “rapid diagnostic reagents.” At an earlier investor conference, An Xu Biotech revealed that in terms of research and development, it will focus on the three fields of chemiluminescence, molecular diagnosis, and POCT. At the performance meeting, the reporter asked Ling Shisheng about the current layout progress of chemiluminescence and molecular diagnostics, and the time expectations for generating revenue for the company? The other party did not give a direct answer, but stated that the R&D expenses of more than 100 million yuan invested in 2023 involved the relevant fields mentioned.