On the evening of September 17, Frontier Biotechnologies Inc. (688221) disclosed its 2025 Restricted Stock Incentive Plan (Draft). The company plans to grant 5 million restricted shares to incentive recipients, including an initial grant of 4.25 million shares and a reserve of 750,000 shares, with a grant price of 8.56 yuan per share. Frontier Biotechnologies stated that this equity incentive aims to establish and improve the company's long-term incentive and constraint mechanism, attract and retain outstanding talent, fully mobilize employee enthusiasm and creativity, effectively enhance core team cohesion and corporate competitiveness, and ensure the realization of the company's development strategy and business objectives.
**Cumulative Achievement of 1 siRNA Drug BD Transaction, 5 New Drug INDs, and 30% Revenue Growth within Two Years**
The draft shows that the initial grant of this incentive plan covers 27 employees, representing 8.94% of the company's total workforce of 302 employees as of December 31, 2024. Among them, 16 personnel evaluated by R&D indicators will receive 3.07 million shares, accounting for 61.40% of the total equity to be granted under this incentive plan. As an R&D-driven innovative drug company, R&D work has always been the top priority of Frontier Biotechnologies' operations, and the allocation proportion of incentive plan shares demonstrates the company's active tilt toward research and development.
Matching the incentives, Frontier Biotechnologies has also set multiple assessment targets for incentive recipients using R&D performance evaluation objectives. In the first vesting period, corresponding to the 2025 assessment year, when the company-level attribution ratio is 100%, the following must be satisfied: 1) The number of INDs (Investigational New Drug applications) in 2025 should be no less than 1 (excluding marketed products); 2) The number of new drug invention patent applications in 2025 should be no less than 8.
In the second vesting period, corresponding to the 2026 assessment year, when the company-level attribution ratio is 100%, in addition to meeting: 1) Cumulative IND count from 2025-2026 should be no less than 5 (excluding marketed products); 2) Cumulative new drug invention patent applications from 2025-2026 should be no less than 16, the company must also achieve 1 cumulative BD transaction for siRNA new drugs from 2025-2026. Here, achieving a "BD transaction" refers to the company's siRNA new drug products being licensed externally with signed agreements.
Notably, for incentive recipients using comprehensive performance evaluation objectives, when the company-level attribution ratio is 100%, in addition to meeting the assessment targets for R&D personnel in the same period, clear requirements are also set for company revenue growth. The first vesting period requires that, based on 2024 operating revenue, the 2025 operating revenue growth rate should be no less than 10%; the second vesting period requires that, based on 2024 operating revenue, the cumulative operating revenue growth rate from 2025-2026 should be no less than 30%.
**siRNA Drug Field Draws Attention**
In this incentive plan, Frontier Biotechnologies explicitly includes achieving BD transactions for siRNA new drugs in relevant assessment targets, making the company's work in this field particularly noteworthy. According to introductions, leveraging deep experience and core resources accumulated in long-acting drug development, Frontier Biotechnologies has rapidly built a comprehensive, high-standard siRNA drug development system through internal technology transfer and external collaborative cooperation.
With siRNA drugs as the core technological direction for innovative drug R&D, Frontier Biotechnologies has established a diversified and forward-looking R&D pipeline matrix in major disease areas, with selected targets having First-in-Class or Best-in-Class potential. In the complement system field, the company's three drugs FB7011, FB7013, and FB7014 target IgA nephropathy as the first indication, with potential for future expansion to other complement mechanism-related disease indications; in the dyslipidemia field, FB7023, FB7022, and other drugs form differentiated layouts targeting different lipoprotein targets; in the endocrine field, multiple independently developed siRNA drugs are steadily advancing for indications such as metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis (MASH) and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). As of now, all the above projects are in preclinical research stages.
Additionally, since entering the siRNA drug field, Frontier Biotechnologies has adopted technological breakthrough and innovation leadership as its core strategy, prioritizing resource investment to tackle innovative delivery technologies for different cell types in liver tissue and the challenge of developing targeted extrahepatic tissue delivery vectors. Currently, the company's independently developed siRNA delivery vector—ACORDE, relying on internal mature chemical synthesis coupling technology platforms, has submitted international invention patent applications for this delivery technology. Based on ACORDE delivery technology, the company has advanced early proof-of-concept R&D work for its first extrahepatic target siRNA drug and first intrahepatic targeted endocrine drug.
Frontier Biotechnologies stated that the company is currently in a strategic critical period of "new technology innovative drug development + eve of new product commercialization," which is a key stage for business transition to high-quality development. The performance assessment indicators of this incentive plan cover core dimensions including product R&D progress, external licensing, and operating revenue, which both align with the company's strategic implementation needs and possess certain challenges. This reflects the company's confidence in future development while effectively enhancing corporate competitiveness, mobilizing employee enthusiasm, and ensuring the realization of the company's future development strategy and business objectives.
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