Core views

Incident: The company released a report for the first three quarters of 2024. The company achieved revenue of 9.29 billion yuan (YoY +9.30%), net profit of 0.87 billion yuan (YoY +2.15%), and deducted non-net profit of 0.831 billion yuan (YoY +0.40%); of these, 3Q24 achieved revenue of 2.862 billion yuan (YoY +12.41%), net profit to mother 0.245 billion yuan (YoY -2.19%), net profit of 0.245 billion yuan (YoY -2.19%) 0.229 billion yuan (-1.75% YoY)

The profit of the pharmaceutical business continued to improve, and exchange losses were affected: by business, the API business achieved revenue of 6.903 billion yuan (YoY +15.31%), gross profit margin 15.60% (YoY -2.56pct). The decline in gross margin was mainly due to the 23H1 anti-viral API price increase, which raised the base; the CDMO business achieved revenue of 1.42 billion yuan (-11.40% YoY), with a gross profit margin of 40.85% (-4.18pct year on year). After deducting the impact of special orders, revenue and gross profit continued to grow steadily; The formulation business grew rapidly and profitability improved significantly, achieving revenue of 0.95 billion yuan (+8.62% year over year) and a gross profit margin of 62.23% (+9.41 pct year over year). The company's gross margin for the first three quarters of 24 was 24.23% (YoY -2.55pct), and the net margin was 9.36% (YoY -0.66pct). The company's sales, management, finance, and R&D expense ratios were 4.30% (-0.76pct), 3.92% (y-0.29pct), -0.15% (+0.89pct), and 5.03% (y-0.66pct), respectively. Financial expenses fluctuated greatly, mainly due to exchange losses of about 7 million yuan, which had an adverse impact on last year's exchange earnings.

The number of API projects has increased dramatically, and the number of CDMO projects has remained high: in terms of APIs, the market share and gross margin of the company's core products have been rising steadily. At the same time, the company has greatly increased the number of projects set up. It is expected to increase the number of projects by 30-50 DMF within 3-5 years, which will drive business growth. In addition, the price of APIs in 24Q2 and 3 increased steadily from month to month, and the gross margin of APIs is expected to recover somewhat in 24Q4. On the CDMO side, there were 1,198 projects quoted in the first three quarters of 24 (+85% year over year) and 948 ongoing projects (+47% year over year), of which the number of R&D projects increased 57% year over year and the number of commercialization projects increased 33% year over year; the 3Q24 gross margin decline was mainly due to faster growth and more delivery in R&D projects. As the project gradually progresses to the commercialization stage, gross margin will stabilize at 35%-45%. In terms of formulations, the company promotes a “multi-variety” and “multi-channel” strategy. Every year, more than 25 new development projects have been set up. As of 3Q24, 15 formulation project verification has been completed, and the real estate of original research products is also progressing steadily.

Investment advice: We expect the company to achieve revenue of 12.564/14.15/16.087 billion yuan and a net profit of 1.147/1.388/1.642 billion yuan in 2024-2026. The corresponding PE is 16.33/13.50/11.41 times.

Risk warning: risk of API price fluctuations; project commercialization falling short of expectations; risk of exchange rate fluctuations