In 2025, the global vaccine industry continues to face pressure amidst multiple challenges including fluctuating vaccination willingness, policy adjustments, and homogenized competition, leading to a slowdown in overall industry growth, with companies generally confronting the challenge of weakening growth momentum.
Against this backdrop, the recently released 2025 annual performance forecast by Zhifei Biological shows a significant loss for the company, drawing market attention. However, a deeper examination of its financial structure, pipeline progress, and strategic adjustments reveals that behind this performance forecast lies a clear trajectory of a biopharmaceutical enterprise reshaping itself and gathering strength during an industry transformation period.
Short-term performance fluctuations have not shaken its long-term strategic foundation; on the contrary, the company is actively accumulating crucial strength to navigate cycles and welcome a new round of growth through proactive debt optimization, product portfolio upgrades, and international expansion.
Facing performance pressure stemming from industry-wide challenges, Zhifei Biological has not passively awaited a market recovery but has instead adopted a series of proactive and prudent operational and financial strategies aimed at reinforcing its safety margin and providing stable financial and operational support for its strategic transformation.
The primary initiative is reflected in the strategic optimization of its debt structure. In early 2026, the company successfully secured a medium-to-long-term syndicated loan, led by the Agricultural Bank of China's Chongqing Jiangbei Sub-branch, with a total amount not exceeding 10.2 billion yuan and a term not exceeding three years. This large-scale syndicated loan not only significantly enhances the company's liquid reserve but, more critically, provides room for "optimizing existing debt," directly alleviating short-term repayment pressure and reducing financial costs.
Simultaneously, the company continues to utilize instruments such as issuing Sci-Tech Innovation Corporate Bonds to steer its debt maturity structure towards a healthier medium-to-long-term orientation. This parallel financing strategy of "syndicated loans plus Sci-Tech Innovation Bonds" demonstrates financial institutions' recognition of the company's long-term value and showcases management's determination to proactively manage the balance sheet during a counter-cyclical period, ensuring the capacity for R&D investment and the advancement of strategic businesses.
Secondly, the company is conducting in-depth cultivation and exploring new indications for its core agency products. In the HPV vaccine sector, facing temporary fluctuations in vaccination willingness, Zhifei Biological actively collaborates with various parties, participating in local public benefit activities and strengthening disease prevention and vaccine knowledge promotion both online and offline, striving to rebuild and enhance public awareness of preventive vaccination.
It is particularly noteworthy that the male indication for the Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) 9-valent HPV vaccine, which it distributes, was approved earlier, making Gardasil 9 currently the only 9-valent HPV vaccine in China covering both eligible males and females, opening up a potentially huge incremental market.
Similarly, the indication for the recombinant zoster vaccine has been expanded to immunocompromised individuals aged 18 and above, filling a preventive gap for this high-risk population. These indication expansions not only extend the product lifecycle but also reflect the company's ability to deeply tap the value of existing products during a market downturn and precisely meet clinical needs.
Furthermore, based on prudent accounting principles, the company has made corresponding impairment provisions for inventory and accounts receivable. While impacting profit performance in the short term, this helps clear historical burdens, enabling the financial statements to more accurately reflect the current operating environment and laying the groundwork for a lighter operational approach in the future.
The loss figure in the performance forecast might obscure the deeper-level, more long-term positive changes occurring at Zhifei Biological—its R&D pipeline is entering a critical phase of intensive harvest and structural upgrade, with the company's positioning subtly evolving from a "vaccine leader" to a "comprehensive biopharmaceutical platform."
In its traditional area of strength—preventive biological products—the company's pipeline reserves are substantial and nearing realization. Currently, among 34 preventive R&D projects, 24 have entered clinical stages or the application phase, with the realization rate continuously improving. Among them, several blockbuster products, including the human diploid cell rabies vaccine, 15-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, and quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine, are in the final sprint stage of the marketing review process. Newly launched products like the quadrivalent influenza vaccine are also rapidly advancing market access. The successive launch of these self-developed products will fundamentally optimize the company's revenue structure, reduce reliance on single agency products, and enhance the autonomy and sustainability of profitability.
A more strategically significant breakthrough lies in the rapid rise of its therapeutic biological products pipeline. Through its controlling subsidiary, ChenAn Biotech, Zhifei Biological is aggressively entering the vast market space of metabolic diseases. Among the 8 current therapeutic R&D projects, the Liraglutide Injection has entered the marketing review stage, the Insulin Degludec and Insulin Aspart Injection (CA508 Injection) has obtained the Phase III clinical trial summary report, and the GLP-1 dual-target agonist CA111 Injection has also entered Phase I clinical trials. Against the backdrop of explosive growth in the global GLP-1 drug market, ChenAn Biotech, with its forward-looking layout and established large-scale production base, is poised to secure a position in treatment areas such as diabetes and obesity, building a second growth curve.
The extension from "prevention" to "treatment" not only expands the company's business boundaries but also represents a comprehensive upgrade of its R&D, production, and commercialization capabilities, redefining its growth narrative.
This optimization and upgrading of the product structure are resonating and synergizing with the company's internationalization strategy. Zhifei Biological has moved away from the traditional product export model, implementing a "clinical trials first" global R&D strategy. The bivalent Shigella flexneri/Sonnei vaccine is undergoing Phase III clinical trials in Bangladesh, directly addressing the needs of high disease burden countries; the initiation of Phase I clinical trials for the 26-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine in Australia represents a knock on the door of developed markets with technology and quality.
For Zhifei Biological, the 2025 performance forecast is more like a deep stress test during a period of strategic transformation. The current loss might be viewed as a one-time financial cleanup of past inventory and accounts receivable, coupled with continuous investment in future R&D and transformation. The focus of capital market attention is gradually shifting from short-term profit fluctuations to whether its self-developed pipeline can be realized as scheduled, whether the therapeutic segment can successfully emerge, and whether the global layout can bear fruit.
(This article does not constitute any investment advice. Investors should operate at their own risk.)
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