On December 22 and 23, two high-profile "18A" biotech stocks plummeted on their debut, leaving many investors feeling the year-end market chill. Following Huazi Bio-B (02396)'s nearly 30% drop on its first trading day, HANXBIO-B (03378) suffered a similar fate on December 23.
Opening at HK$28.9 (9.69% below its IPO price of HK$32), HANXBIO-B's shares plunged to a low of HK$17.20 intraday—a staggering 46.25% decline. Despite a brief afternoon rebound attempt, the stock closed at its lowest point, locking in a 46.25% loss.
Both companies carried significant hype: Huazi Bio-B as "Hong Kong’s first PDGF-focused stock" and HANXBIO-B with its differentiated "PD-1 plus" therapy and a first-in-class dual-pathway anti-cancer candidate. Their strong pre-IPO subscription numbers had positioned them as year-end "biotech gems," making their disastrous debuts particularly jarring.
**Is the "Pre-revenue 18A Model" an IPO Trap?** HANXBIO-B’s offering drew frenzied demand—3,074x oversubscribed in its Hong Kong retail tranche (allocating 10% of shares) and 5.78x in institutional placement (90%). The HK$32/share top-range pricing raised HK$531 million net.
Since August’s HKEX IPO reforms compressed public floats to 10% minimum, issuers like HANXBIO-B and Huazi Bio-B adopted "Mechanism B"—prioritizing cornerstone/anchored institutional investors (90% allocation) to theoretically stabilize prices. Yet both stocks still collapsed.
HANXBIO-B secured seven cornerstone investors (15.93% of offering), including Fude Resources and Guotai Junan Securities, investing HK$93.37 million collectively. Unlike Huazi Bio-B’s no-cornerstone, all-anchor approach, HANXBIO-B blended selective cornerstones with long-term/trading anchors—a strategy that failed to prevent its 14.81% dark pool drop.
**Pre-revenue Status + Top-range Pricing = Double Whammy** Like Huazi Bio-B, HANXBIO-B is a pre-revenue "18A" biotech. Its VersatiBody platform develops bispecific/multifunctional antibodies, with lead asset HX009 (PD-1/SIRPα fusion protein) in Phase Ib/IIa trials for melanoma and lymphoma. However, all pipeline assets remain unapproved, with no major licensing deals.
Financially, HANXBIO-B reported losses of RMB85.2 million (2023), RMB117 million (2024), and RMB87.4 million (8M 2025). With just RMB133 million cash against RMB220 million current liabilities as of October 2025, its aggressive HK$32/share pricing (post-money valuation: RMB4.35 billion vs. RMB1.62 billion pre-IPO) likely fueled market skepticism.
Even after its 46% crash, HANXBIO-B’s HK$2.34 billion market cap trades at 21.77x P/B—83% above its historical range and 4.5x the industry average (4.81x), suggesting further valuation pressure ahead.
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