Last year, net profit surged 33-fold, and PlatinumMed Pharmaceuticals’ stock price climbed by more than 10% during intraday trading. Can the performance rocket fueled by BD continue?

Ask AI · How does HeBo Medicine drive strategic performance reversal through platforms?

This article source: Times Finance Author: Du Sumin

On April 1st, HeBo Medicine (02142.HK) stock price briefly surged over 10% intraday, ultimately closing at HKD 14.19, up 8.32%. This performance resonated with the overall strength of the innovative drug sector, as the same day, the A-shares and Hong Kong stocks’ innovative drug sectors collectively exploded, with RuiZhi Medicine (300149.SZ) hitting a “20% limit-up in 17 minutes,” and more than 10 innovative drug ETFs rising over 7%.

Just two days earlier, HeBo Medicine released its 2025 performance report. During the reporting period, the company achieved total revenue of approximately 1.11 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 314.6%; annual net profit was about 648 million yuan, a 33-fold surge year-on-year.

On March 31st, HeBo Medicine held an earnings presentation. Times Finance learned from the meeting that by 2025, HeBo Medicine’s total revenue will reach $158 million (equivalent to about 1.11 billion RMB), of which molecular licensing income will be $141 million, a 375% increase year-on-year, mainly driven by collaborations with multinational pharmaceutical companies and overseas licensing of innovative products; research services and technology licensing fees will reach $16.58M, up 98.7%, reflecting continuous platform value release.

While revenue and profit are growing rapidly, HeBo Medicine continues to ramp up R&D investment. In 2025, the company’s R&D expenses will be $39.77 million, an 89.4% increase, mainly used for the ongoing advancement of clinical pipelines and early-stage product layout.

Rewinding three years, HeBo Medicine’s situation was completely different from today. Founded in 2016, HeBo Medicine initially focused on R&D of innovative drugs, possessing a globally leading fully human antibody transgenic mouse platform Harbour Mice®. However, in the first few years after its IPO in 2020, the company struggled to escape the loss-making cycle of money-burning R&D, with net losses of $138 million and $137 million in 2021-2022, respectively.

At that time, HeBo Medicine’s stock price was continuously declining from its peak after listing, and the market doubted its pipeline’s clinical progress and commercialization prospects. Some market voices believed that the pipeline lacked clearly blockbuster products, and the value of the technology platform was difficult to quantify in financial statements.

In October 2022, HeBo Medicine made a key strategic adjustment, splitting its business into Harbour Therapeutics (product development) and Nona Biotech (platform technology licensing). This move was seen as a milestone in the company’s transition from “R&D-driven” to “platform-driven.” After the split, the value of the technology platform could be independently released, and decision-making for external cooperation was significantly improved.

Starting in 2023, HeBo Medicine’s licensing collaborations entered a harvest phase. By 2025, its business development (BD) collaborations further intensified. HeBo Medicine’s founder, Chairman, and CEO Wang Jinsong stated at the above earnings presentation that 2025 is a critical year in HeBo Medicine’s development, marking the official entry into the 3.0 strategic phase, with a clear blueprint to become a globally leading platform-based biopharmaceutical group by 2028. Over the past year, HeBo Medicine has achieved over $7 billion in global cooperation transaction scale, ranking among the top five in China’s innovative drug companies’ outbound deals in 2025.

Image source: Tuchong

Specifically, HeBo Medicine’s cooperation with AstraZeneca covers next-generation multispecific antibodies, ADCs, and TCEs, with an upfront payment and recent milestones totaling $175 million, and a potential total of $4.4 billion; a long-term partnership with BMS has a potential total exceeding $1.1 billion; cooperation with Otsuka on HBM7020 involves an upfront payment of $47 million and a potential total of $670 million. Additionally, its subsidiary Nona Biotech has also reached a non-exclusive platform licensing agreement with Pfizer.

HeBo Medicine’s explosive growth in performance is impressive, but the market is more concerned whether this growth can be sustained. From the revenue structure, the high profits in 2025 largely depend on milestone payments from external collaborations, which are phased and uncertain. Whether stable revenue growth can be maintained in the future depends not only on the continued implementation of collaborations and the progress of clinical pipelines but also on whether its technology platform can continuously produce new molecules with differentiated advantages, and whether external recognition of its platform and R&D capabilities can be sustained.

HeBo Medicine’s CFO Chen Youchen stated at the meeting that before 2025, the company’s revenue mainly consisted of two core blocks: product licensing BD and platform cooperation services from Nona Biotech. After 2025, while consolidating global platform outbound and Nona Biotech service revenues, the company will expand into more diverse and varied revenue models. As more collaborations deepen, the group’s revenue structure will further improve, gradually forming a multi-faceted, high-quality income system including product revenue, ecosystem revenue, and licensing cooperation revenue.

Regarding the company’s future financial outlook, Chen Youchen revealed that HeBo Medicine expects the group’s total revenue in 2026 to maintain a growth rate of no less than 40% to 50%, reaching between $221 million and $237 million. Additionally, the company is confident in ensuring steady profitability of its routine operations and aims to complete more than two large-scale BD deals annually, each with a total value exceeding $1 billion and an upfront payment over $50 million, thereby establishing stable and predictable BD cash flow to continuously support its R&D capabilities and strategic layout.