In the evening, Huadong Medicine released its semi-annual report, with a net profit growth of nearly 20%, and achieved double-digit revenue growth in the pharmaceutical industry and medical beauty sectors. Along with the semi-annual report are two important announcements, one about BD introduction agreement, the other about BD termination agreement, highlighting Huadong Medicine's comparison and choice in the GLP-1 pipeline. Since the beginning of the year, Huadong Medicine has been constantly taking action in BD introduction and external acquisitions.
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According to Cailian Press on August 15th (Reporter Lu Afeng), Huadong Medicine (000963.SZ) submitted its performance report for the first half of the year today, with a net profit growth of nearly 20%. In addition, under the situation of frequently carrying out BD introductions or capital acquisitions this year, Huadong Medicine seems to have started to make some choices regarding pipelines. Tonight, it simultaneously released an announcement on BD introduction agreement and BD termination agreement as a sign.
According to the financial report, Huadong Medicine achieved a revenue of RMB 20.965 billion in the first half of 2024, a year-on-year increase of 2.84%; a net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company of RMB 1.696 billion, a year-on-year increase of 18.29%; and a non-net profit of RMB 1.625 billion, a year-on-year increase of 13.85%. As for Q2 alone, Huadong Medicine achieved a net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 0.834 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.83%.
Specific to the four main revenue areas, where the pharmaceutical industry sector achieved a revenue of RMB 6.698 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.63%; the medical beauty sector achieved a revenue of RMB 1.348 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.14%; and the industrial microorganism sector achieved a sales revenue of RMB 0.285 billion, a year-on-year increase of 27.43%. The only sector with a decrease in revenue was the pharmaceutical commerce sector, which achieved a revenue of RMB 13.552 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 0.58%.
During the first half of this year, Huadong Medicine showed a comprehensive attack in terms of BD trades and external acquisitions. In terms of asset acquisitions, in March, Huadong Medicine successfully participated in the first public offering of shares subscription of Quanxin Biology (02509.HK), with a shareholding ratio of 17.06%; on July 19th, Huadong Medicine's wholly-owned subsidiary Huadong Medicine (Xi'an) Bohua Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. acquired traditional Chinese medicine external use preparation company Hengba Pharmaceutical for RMB 0.52847 billion.
In terms of product introductions, Huadong Medicine's wholly-owned subsidiary Sino-American Huadong signed a cooperation agreement with Suzhou Ozong Biotechnology Co., Ltd. on July 12th, obtaining the rights to liraglutide tablets in the Greater China region; on July 19th, Huadong Medicine and Quanxin Biology reached a cooperation agreement on the QX005N product; on August 2nd, Huadong Medicine (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd. signed an agreement with Beijing Yimiao Shenzhou Pharmaceutical Technology Co., Ltd., obtaining the exclusive commercialization rights of IM19 chimeric antigen receptor T-cell injection in mainland China.
On the night of the release of the 2024H1 report, Huadong Medicine announced two heavyweight pieces of news, one being that its subsidiary Hangzhou Sino-American Huadong signed an agreement with South Korean IMBiologics Corp. to obtain the exclusive development, registration, production and commercialization rights of two innovative products in the field of self-immunity, IMB-101 and IMB-102, in 37 Asian countries; the other is that its subsidiary Hangzhou Sino-American Huadong and its American partner vTv Therapeutics LLC have signed a confirmation letter to terminate the TTP273 project, deciding to terminate the follow-up research of the TTP273 project.
Huadong Medicine believes that the orally administered small molecule GLP-1 receptor agonist HDM1002, independently developed by Huadong Medicine, is superior to TTP273 in terms of efficacy, activity, biological utilization, production difficulty, and cost, and has more significant efficacy in weight loss indications, with higher development potential. According to the financial report, HDM1002 has completed all of its group recruitment for phase II clinical trials for overweight or obese populations in August.
Other GLP-1 pipeline aspects worth noting include that semaglutide injection has submitted a pre-IND application in weight management indications as of May this year. As of April 16th, the injection had successfully completed all subjects' group recruitment in phase III clinical trials in diabetes indications. Both HDM1005, Huadong Medicine's self-developed GLP-1R/GIPR dual-target long-acting peptide agonist, and DR10624, a multi-target agonist for FGF21R/GCGR/GLP-1R developed by Huadong Medicine's holding subsidiary Daor Biological, are steadily advancing their clinical studies. Among them, the clinical trial approval for HDM1005 injection in the US was granted in April this year.
Earlier, industry experts analyzed to Cailian Press reporters that although Huadong Medicine seems unable to catch up with Novo Nordisk, Eli Lilly, and Innovent Biologics in the GLP-1 track, these pipeline layouts are expected to bear fruit in the next two to three years, and the multi-target and differentiated forward-looking layouts will become apparent.