Recently, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products Co.,Ltd. released its 2025 interim results. According to the financial data, the company achieved operating revenue of 1.392 billion yuan in the first half of the year, representing a year-on-year increase of 15.81%. However, net profit attributable to shareholders was only 37.53 million yuan, plummeting 77.30% year-on-year. This net profit level marks a historic low since the company's public listing in 2017. As a former leading enterprise in China's vaccine industry, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products is experiencing its most challenging period since going public. Under the pressure of multiple factors including policy changes, market competition, and product pipeline gaps, how will this veteran vaccine company break through?
**Core Products See Comprehensive Decline in Batch Release Volumes**
According to available information, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products currently has four core products: the four-in-one vaccine, hepatitis B vaccine, 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine, and human diploid rabies vaccine. However, except for the hepatitis B vaccine, the other three core products all experienced significant declines in batch release volumes during the first half of 2025.
Among these, the four-in-one vaccine suffered a cliff-like drop with batch release volumes declining 84% year-on-year. The direct cause of this plunge was the National Disease Control and Prevention Administration's adjustment to the pertussis immunization strategy. Starting from January 1, 2025, the DPT vaccine administration schedule was moved earlier, allowing vaccination at 2, 4, 6, and 18 months. Although the adjustment did not directly target four-in-one and five-in-one vaccines, according to product specifications, Sanofi Pasteur's five-in-one vaccine maintains consistency with the national updated schedule by administering the first dose at 2 months of age, while Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products' four-in-one vaccine can only be administered starting from 3 months of age.
This one-month time difference significantly weakened the market competitiveness of Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products' four-in-one vaccine. The company had to provision 93.03 million yuan for inventory impairment in its interim report, a figure nearly 2.44 times its net profit, reflecting the company's pessimistic expectations for the four-in-one vaccine market prospects.
The 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine faces red ocean competition, with batch release volumes declining 44.31% year-on-year. The 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine was once one of the world's largest single vaccine products, but with declining domestic newborn numbers and intensifying market competition, this product has become difficult to sell since 2023. Under domestic competition and late age extension timing, Pfizer handed over Prevenar 13 to Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding Co., Ltd. for distribution; Walvax Biotechnology's sales volume is also declining.
By 2024, although Walvax Biotechnology held the largest market share in this category, its sales revenue still declined year-on-year. In June 2025, CanSino Biologics' fourth domestic similar product was approved for market, further intensifying the pressure faced by Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products in this category.
The human diploid rabies vaccine, as a newly approved product by Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products that only began formal sales in April 2024, saw batch release volumes decline 100% year-on-year in the first half of 2025. This product broke the exclusive advantage of Liaoning Chengda Biotechnology Co., Ltd. in this category and was therefore expected to perform well. In its first year of approval, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products' human diploid rabies vaccine achieved batch releases of 3.37 million doses, nearly matching Liaoning Chengda Biotechnology's 3.90 million doses.
However, the domestic rabies vaccine market growth is slowing, and human diploid rabies vaccine is positioned in the high-end market with a price of approximately 300 yuan per dose, lacking price competitiveness. In comparison, Vero cell rabies vaccine prices have fallen below 100 yuan. Against the backdrop of slowing overall rabies vaccine market growth and low-priced competing products still dominating the mainstream, whether it can continue to contribute profits remains questionable.
**Transformation Path Faces Long Journey, Stock Price Continues Declining, 2 Billion Yuan Convertible Bonds Difficult to Convert**
Facing the decline of traditional products, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products actively seeks transformation, but this path is not smooth. Currently, the company's new product pipeline still has a considerable distance before market launch.
Presently, the company is developing another four-in-one vaccine (DPT-inactivated polio) and a five-in-one vaccine, with the former in Phase 1 clinical stage and the latter having obtained preliminary Phase 1 clinical data while communicating with regulators regarding Phase 3 clinical matters. Multi-component and multi-valent vaccines are indeed an industry trend, being more economical for recipients with higher compliance. However, vaccine development cycles are long with large investments, and related products under development are unlikely to contribute to performance in the short term.
Regarding overseas market development, in July 2025, the partner of Min Hai Biotechnology, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products, obtained a drug registration certificate for the 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine from Indonesia's food and drug regulatory authority, approving the market launch of the 13-valent pneumococcal vaccine locally packaged in Indonesia.
This marks the first product of Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products to be approved for market through technology transfer overseas with local packaging, signifying important progress in the company's internationalization strategy. However, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products' overseas revenue scale remains very small. In 2024 and the first half of 2025, its overseas revenue was 11.60 million yuan and 20.02 million yuan respectively, contributing less than 2% of total revenue.
Beyond operational challenges, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products also faces concerns in corporate governance. In July 2021, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products issued 2 billion yuan in convertible bonds, originally planned for COVID-19 vaccine industrialization. With the decline in COVID-19 vaccine demand, this debt has become a heavy burden for the company.
Although Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products has reduced the conversion price of convertible bonds five consecutive times, judging from stock price performance, the company's stock price has been declining since August 2020, falling from 154.68 yuan per share to approximately 18.6 yuan per share currently, representing nearly a 90% decline. Under weak stock price performance, the willingness to convert bonds is clearly insufficient.
Additionally, on July 1 this year, Yuan Liping, the former wife of Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products' actual controller Du Weimin, disclosed a reduction plan, intending to reduce holdings of no more than 11.16 million shares (not exceeding 1.00% of the company's total share capital) through centralized bidding or block trading.
Yuan Liping's shares were obtained through divorce from Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products' actual controller Du Weimin, with a market value of 25.6 billion yuan at the time, setting a new record for A-share divorce "breakup fees." In fact, since the divorce, Yuan Liping has continuously reduced her holdings in the company. According to Wind data, Yuan Liping's shareholding ratio has declined from approximately 24% initially to the current 17.07%.
Overall, Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products faces unprecedented challenges. The embarrassing situation of revenue growth masking profit collapse, declining competitiveness of core products, slow R&D transformation, continuous stock price decline, and multiple pressures coexist. Under the backdrop of industry policy adjustments and intensifying market competition, the path to breakthrough remains long and difficult.
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