The domestic independent clinical laboratory (ICL) industry has entered a period of deep adjustment in recent years, influenced by multiple factors including healthcare cost containment, the normalization of centralized procurement, and adjustments to medical service pricing. This has accelerated the differentiation in the competitive landscape, forcing companies to face the severe challenge of transitioning from scale expansion to quality and efficiency. However, within this adjustment lies the seeds of renewal; the industry's shift towards high-quality and refined operations has not halted but has instead accelerated against the trend.
In this round of industry consolidation, certain leading enterprises have demonstrated strong operational resilience, thanks to their forward-looking strategic planning and profound operational expertise. Taking ADICON HOLDINGS (09860), which recently disclosed its 2025 results, as an example: in 2025, the company achieved revenue of RMB 2.64 billion and an adjusted net profit of RMB 66.07 million. Against the backdrop of widespread industry pressure, its core operations exhibited stability exceeding expectations.
Breaking down the business segments, the company's traditional ICL operations ran steadily. Revenue from cooperative ventures grew by approximately 20% year-on-year, becoming a crucial support for consolidating the core business. More notably, the CRO business, which the company is actively developing as its second growth engine, saw revenue surge by approximately 32% year-on-year. It managed to break through the adverse environment of overall industry contraction, demonstrating极强的 growth resilience. Evidently, leveraging the strategic advantage of its "ICL + CRO" dual-engine drive, ADICON HOLDINGS has not only stabilized its core operations but has also opened up new growth space through structural optimization and strategic elevation, with overall operating indicators showing a stable and positive development trend.
The resilience of the "ballast" business is evident, with refined operations building a cost moat. In 2025, ADICON HOLDINGS's strategic transformation yielded significant results, with continuous business structure optimization presenting a favorable situation of a "stable core and powerful new engines." Faced with price pressures stemming from the mutual recognition of test results for its foundational "ballast" business, the company did not opt for passive contraction. Instead, it mitigated risks by turning inward through refined operations.
The company successfully reduced reagent procurement costs by 14% through centralized procurement strategies and supply chain optimization, while reasonably extending supplier payment terms by 8 days. These measures significantly optimized capital turnover efficiency, preserving vital resources during the industry's challenging period. This demonstrated cost-control capability in adversity highlights the accelerating release of scale effects and management dividends inherent to a leading enterprise.
Although the specialized testing business experienced slight fluctuations during the year due to macroeconomic influences, structural bright spots frequently emerged. Sample volumes remained stable and grew steadily in high-barrier fields such as oncology testing and genetic disease screening. Particularly noteworthy was the liquid biopsy project in cooperation with international giants like Guardant Health, which saw a surge in sample volume, underscoring the rigidity and irreplaceability of demand for high-end specialized testing. With the accelerated approval of innovative drugs and devices and the increasing adoption of precision medicine, the high-margin nature of the specialized testing business is expected to be more fully realized in 2026, becoming a key engine driving the recovery of the company's overall profit margin.
As an important link connecting regional medical resources, the cooperative venture business delivered an excellent performance with revenue growth of approximately 20% year-on-year, securing 69 new projects. This growth stems from precisely meeting hospitals' dual needs for "cost reduction and efficiency improvement" and "disciplinary development." By exporting technology, management, and disciplinary capabilities, ADICON HOLDINGS has upgraded the traditional "outsourcing service" model to "in-depth cooperation," successfully building a highly sticky business moat. The rapid growth of the cooperative venture business not only provides a stable revenue stream but also serves as a crucial tool for penetrating lower-tier markets, acquiring new customers, and deeply integrating with regional medical resources.
The "ICL + CRO" dual-engine drive takes shape, with full-industry-chain layout reshaping valuation logic. If business structure optimization is about solidifying the foundation, then the strategic acquisition of Crown Bioscience was ADICON HOLDINGS's key breakthrough in 2025 and a milestone marking a fundamental shift in its valuation logic. According to the financial report, revenue from the company's CRO business surged by approximately 32% year-on-year during the reporting period, demonstrating robust growth resilience.
This impressive result benefits from the sustained recovery in global innovative drug R&D demand and, more importantly, stems from the company's forward-looking layout in building core capabilities. The significance of this acquisition far exceeds the incremental revenue from financial consolidation; it represents a qualitative upgrade in the company's developmental dimension. As a global leader in preclinical oncology research, Crown Bioscience possesses a unique PDX (patient-derived xenograft) model platform. This acquisition allows ADICON HOLDINGS to seamlessly connect a full-industry-chain闭环 encompassing "preclinical research (CRO)" to "clinical trials (central laboratory)" and finally to "commercial testing (ICL)."
This full-chain layout enables the company to effectively smooth out the cyclical fluctuations inherent to the standalone ICL business, which is susceptible to healthcare policy impacts, while simultaneously enhancing overall profit quality through the high-margin and international nature of the CRO business. A more critical variable is the "transition business" implemented in the second half of the year, which has already pre-secured over 400 highly synergistic customers, laying the groundwork for future performance surges. This arrangement facilitates two-way traffic: Crown's R&D clients become new testing customers for ADICON, and ADICON's clinical data becomes a powerful tool for pharmaceutical companies' R&D. This endogenous cycle of "R&D + clinical" will significantly increase average revenue per user (ARPU), forming an ecosystem barrier difficult for competitors to surpass.
As the "ICL + CRO" dual-engine drive matures, ADICON HOLDINGS is evolving from a traditional testing leader into a comprehensive healthcare solutions provider covering the entire cycle from R&D to clinical trials and commercial testing. Its valuation logic will be reconstructed accordingly.
Digitalization and AI are reshaping productivity boundaries, transitioning from efficiency tools to ecosystem building. While expanding its business, ADICON HOLDINGS continues to increase investment in digitalization and artificial intelligence, upgrading these from efficiency-enhancing tools to core capabilities for building a smart healthcare ecosystem.
During the period, the company accelerated the construction of its digital laboratories. The new-generation LIMS has been deployed nationwide, and PIMS coverage has reached 10 core laboratories. This not only improves operational efficiency but also serves as the quality cornerstone for all 25 of the company's laboratories obtaining ISO15189 accreditation. Simultaneously, the company's AI applications have achieved scaled implementation, with technological investments being continuously converted into tangible operational benefits.
In 2025, ADICON HOLDINGS's AI-assisted pathology slide reading volume exceeded 13 million slides, with reading efficiency improving by 6-7 times compared to manual processes alone, significantly shortening report turnaround times. The public-facing "AI Xiao Yi" smart assistant was successfully launched, serving over 4 million users and 150,000 doctors. This successfully extends professional services to C-end health management, effectively enhancing customer stickiness and service value. These technological investments are translating into tangible marginal cost reductions and service experience improvements, building intelligent service capabilities across scenarios from the laboratory to the clinic, and from B-end to C-end.
Furthermore, the company actively promoted the integrated construction of AI+ regional testing centers during the period, facilitating the establishment of district-level testing centers in areas like Nanyang and Tianqiao through joint venture models, achieving deep integration of AI technology with regional medical resources. The company is also actively exploring strategic cooperation with leading internet groups, aiming to provide offline testing, laboratory, and data services to a broader medical ecosystem, continuously building a closed loop for smart testing and converting technological advantages into platform barriers.
Summary Standing at the starting point of 2026, the 2025 report card delivered by ADICON HOLDINGS not only demonstrates its operational resilience during the industry's adjustment cycle but also confirms the foresight and effectiveness of its "ICL + CRO" dual-engine drive strategy. From the counter-trend high growth of the CRO business to the steady progress of cooperative ventures; from the strategic elevation brought by the Crown Bioscience acquisition to the efficiency revolution driven by deep empowerment through AI and digitalization—ADICON HOLDINGS is clearly transitioning along a defined strategic path from a traditional independent clinical laboratory to a healthcare solutions provider covering the entire chain from "preclinical research – clinical trials – commercial testing."
With the gradual conversion of over 400 synergistic customers, the realization of high-margin specialized testing business, and the deep empowerment of AI and digital capabilities, the "ICL + CRO" dual-engine drive model is accelerating from a strategic blueprint towards tangible performance delivery. Against the backdrop of normalized healthcare cost containment, this full-industry-chain ecosystem barrier not only smooths out cyclical fluctuations of any single business but also opens up the imagination space for a future leap in profit quality.
Looking ahead, once the synergistic effects are fully unleashed, ADICON HOLDINGS is poised to experience a "Davis Double Play" of earnings elasticity and valuation recovery, positioning itself as a core asset in the new round of consolidation within China's healthcare industry,兼具防御性与高成长潜力的核心标的 (combining defensive qualities with high growth potential).
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