Chinese pharma firms Hengrui, Hansoh expected to post strong first-half profits
On August 21, Hengrui, China's largest drug maker by market value, is expected to say its net profit for the first half rose 40 per cent from a year earlier to 4.1 billion yuan (US$570.8 million), with revenue up 9 per cent to 15.7 billion yuan, according to analysts' consensus estimates from Bloomberg. For all of 2025, the company's profit is expected to improve 28 per cent to 8.1 billion yuan.
The Shanghai-listed company
went public in Hong Kong in May, raising HK$9.9 billion (US$1.26 billion). The ramp-up of novel drug sales is a key driver of the company's profit growth, as past research and development efforts paid off and reduced its reliance on less lucrative generics, analysts said.
'The launches of these innovative drugs will further improve Hengrui's revenue structure and shrink the role of generic drugs in its business,' Huayuan Securities analyst Liu Chuang said in a July 29 report.
According to a recent report from Guotai Haitong Securities, generics accounted for 43 per cent of Hengrui's revenue last year, down from 62 per cent in 2022. That figure was expected to fall to 23 per cent in 2027.
After a decade of policy
reforms that raised the quality of generics and cut red tape for innovative drug approvals, Beijing has urged the nation's pharmaceutical firms to invest in novel drug development to raise the industry's global competitiveness.
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