Zhongtai Securities has released a research report maintaining a "Buy" rating on HBM HOLDINGS-B (02142). Leveraging its fully human antibody technology platform, HBM HOLDINGS has established itself as a key global provider of innovative antibody source technologies through deep collaborations in 2025 with top multinational pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca, Otsuka, Pfizer, and BMS. This business model not only provides short-term revenue visibility and long-term cash flow flexibility but also lays a solid foundation for the company to achieve sustainable, capital-light, and highly profitable growth. Zhongtai Securities' main viewpoints are as follows: Ongoing deep collaborations with major overseas pharmaceutical companies are positioning the company as an indispensable source technology provider for innovative antibodies within the global biopharmaceutical industry chain. Through its Harbour Mice® fully human antibody technology and the derived heavy chain-only antibody (HCAb) and HBICE bispecific antibody platforms, the company's recent series of intensive partnerships with large overseas pharma firms have solidified the certainty of its long-term cash flow and the commercial value of its technology platforms. It is progressively building an open innovation ecosystem deeply intertwined with global pharmaceutical giants, achieving diversified revenue streams, maximized capital efficiency, and front-loaded value discovery. The collaboration with AstraZeneca saw the company announce a global strategic partnership in March to jointly develop next-generation multi-specific antibody therapies for immunology, oncology, and other diseases, based on a multi-project licensing agreement for HBM HOLDINGS' proprietary Harbour Mice® platform across multiple therapeutic areas. In October, the HBM HOLDINGS-AstraZeneca Innovation Lab was officially inaugurated in Beijing, marking a further deepening of the collaboration and placing the entire R&D process for next-generation antibody drugs, from discovery to optimization, into an "acceleration channel." In November, the company updated and deepened the global strategic partnership established with AstraZeneca in March, with both parties agreeing to jointly discover and develop next-generation biologics, including ADCs and TCEs, based on their respective expertise. As a global oncology leader, AstraZeneca not only has a proven track record of commercialized products and efficient clinical operations in oncology but is also actively investing at the forefront of the ADC and TCE fields, making its selection of the company's innovative antibody technology a significant industry bellwether. In its collaboration with Otsuka Pharmaceutical, the company announced a global strategic partnership in June to jointly advance the development of a BCMAxCD3 TCE for treating autoimmune diseases. While TCE applications are more established in hematologic malignancies, with several marketed products demonstrating the commercial potential of such therapies, the autoimmune space represents a new frontier for TCE expansion. This collaboration highlights the advantages of HBM HOLDINGS' proprietary Harbour Mice® platform, such as high production efficiency and low immunogenicity, which are particularly suited for autoimmune diseases characterized by low mortality, long disease duration, and consequently, high demands for treatment cost-effectiveness and safety. The deepened collaboration with Pfizer involved the company's subsidiary, Nona Biosciences, announcing a non-exclusive license agreement with Pfizer in November to accelerate preclinical antibody discovery research for a range of potential disease indications. Pfizer will gain global access to Nona Biosciences' proprietary HCAD technology platform for generating fully human heavy chain antibodies. Following an ADC licensing deal with Pfizer in 2023, this significantly broadens the scope of cooperation. As a pharmaceutical behemoth, Pfizer adds substantial high-growth business potential for the company. The collaboration with BMS was announced in December, involving a long-term global strategic collaboration and license agreement to jointly develop next-generation multi-specific antibody therapies. The company will receive payments totaling $90 million and could receive up to $1.035 billion in development and commercial milestone payments if BMS advances all potential projects, plus tiered royalties on future product net sales. With this deal, the company completed two multi-project collaborations with MNCs in 2025, significantly accelerating the pace of its deep integration with major global players. The outlook for the company's unique business model is positive as it gradually realizes value. 1) Short-term revenue visibility: Upfront payments and near-term achievable R&D milestones directly boost short-term revenue. 2) Long-term revenue elasticity: Sales royalties provide long-term cash flow that materializes as partners' products successfully reach the market. 3) Certainty of an inflection point in profitability: Without requiring large-scale capital expenditure, licensing revenue will directly improve net profit margins, foreshadowing an extremely healthy long-term financial structure. Risks include the potential for clinical R&D failure, collaboration execution risks, technology iteration risks, and the risk that publicly available information used in the research report may be outdated or not promptly updated.
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