No Products Secured Billion-Dollar Orders, Qiang Jing's Wife Cashed Out Before Sinovant's IPO

Deep News01-05

"Bachelor of Pharmacy + Doctor of Economics" – this dual identity has cemented Qiang Jing's reputation as a prominent biopharmaceutical investor. With his pharmaceutical background, Qiang Jing is highly skilled in capital operations. During his tenure at China International Capital Corporation Limited (CICC), he participated in the IPOs of major pharmaceutical companies such as Sinopharm Group, China Resources Pharmaceutical Group, and Fosun Pharmaceutical. In 2015, he and his wife, Liu Wenyi, established Xingze Capital, where he serves as a partner, focusing on investing in outstanding early-stage and growth-stage companies in the healthcare industry. Around 2017, when antibody drugs were gaining significant momentum, Qiang Jing transitioned from a seasoned investor to an entrepreneur by founding an innovative drug company – Suzhou Sinovant Sciences Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Sinovant"). Recently, Sinovant submitted its prospectus for a listing on the STAR Market. In the highly capital-intensive and long-cycle race of innovative drug R&D, "funding R&D through R&D" has become a survival and development strategy for many biopharmaceutical companies. Sinovant is no exception; it has achieved self-sustainability through continuous business development (BD) transactions and currently holds BD agreement orders totaling $2.139 billion. Just before submitting the listing application, Sinovant attracted multiple rounds of investment from Tencent, while the company's founding shareholders and the spouse of the actual controller quietly exited.

Founding shareholders sold their entire stakes, and Tencent entered the scene. The wife of the actual controller cashed out before the IPO. Sinovant was established in May 2017 with an initial registered capital of 20 million yuan, held by Yang Sumei, Le Meijie, and Wu Yuchuan with stakes of 37.5%, 12.5%, and 50%, respectively. Among them, Yang Sumei held the shares on behalf of her son, Qiang Jing, and this shareholding arrangement was terminated in April 2018. During subsequent equity incentive plans, Qiang Jing also entrusted his father, Qiang Nanzhong, to hold shares on his behalf through three employee持股 platforms: Youyao Partnership, Chenghuai Yangguan Partnership, and Youxiao Partnership. In August 2017, these three持股 platforms became shareholders of Sinovant by acquiring a total of 5 million yuan in registered capital from Yang Sumei, Le Meijie, and Wu Yuchuan, thus forming the shareholding arrangement. In August 2020 and January 2021, the company conducted equity incentives through the three持股 platforms. As Qiang Nanzhong never made any capital contributions, he withdrew from the partnerships at a price of 0 yuan. Qiang Jing became the executive partner of the three持股 platforms, and the shareholding arrangement between the two was dissolved. In February 2021, Sinovant completed its joint-stock reform, expanding its shareholder base to 37 entities. Among them, Lipan Partnership, controlled by Qiang Jing, was the largest shareholder, holding 24.56%; the second-largest shareholder was Youyao Partnership, with shares held by eight executives including Le Meijie, YONGHAN HU, Yun Song, and Qiang Jing. Additionally, Qiang Jing, Le Meijie, and Wu Yuchuan directly held 0.52%, 6.28%, and 5.11% of the shares, respectively. From early 2022 to the present, Sinovant has conducted three capital increases, seven share transfers, and two capitalizations from capital reserve. The company's three rounds of capital increase were completed within a short span of one year, from February 2023 to February 2024, raising a total of 662 million yuan. Among these, Tencent Mobility Limited, under Tencent, invested 150 million yuan in February 2024 at a price of 14.76 yuan per share, valuing Sinovant at 5.462 billion yuan post-investment. Before applying for listing on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, several shareholders of Sinovant reduced their holdings or exited entirely, including founding shareholders, the spouse of the actual controller, and strategic investors. In May 2024, one of the founding shareholders, Wu Yuchuan, transferred his 16.6114 million shares in the company to Xinkang Weijian and exited, cashing out 61.8268 million yuan. The transfer price for Wu Yuchuan's shares was only 3.72 yuan per share, a quarter of the company's capital increase price during the same period. In September of the same year, Xinghe Medical transferred 8.4714 million shares and 1.583 million shares to Tencent Mobility Limited and Asymchem Laboratories Fund III, respectively, cashing out 100 million yuan and 18.6861 million yuan. In May 2025, Xingwei Investment transferred its 5.0828 million shares to Asymchem Laboratories Fund III, cashing out 60 million yuan. From June to July of the same year, some shareholders of Sinovant transferred a total of 17.2208 million shares to GF Capital, Hongsheng Investment, Hanghai Investment, CDH Hongjia, CDH Yingjia, Genuine Holdings Limited, and Tencent Mobility Limited. Among them, Xinghe Medical, Xingwei Investment, and Xingze Xingfu cashed out 77.3194 million yuan, 31.5694 million yuan, and 25.5322 million yuan, respectively. After these share transfers, Xinghe Medical, Xingwei Investment, and Xingze Xingfu all exited Sinovant's shareholder roster. Since September 2024, these three platforms have cumulatively cashed out 313 million yuan through multiple rounds of equity transfers. It is worth noting that these three platforms are indirectly controlled by Qiang Jing's spouse, Liu Wenyi. Before the listing application, Liu Wenyi still indirectly held 0.0013% of Sinovant's shares. Furthermore, during the equity transfer process, Tencent Mobility Limited spent a total of 140 million yuan to acquire 11.1615 million shares. Combined with the previous capital increase, Tencent has invested a total of 290 million yuan in Sinovant. Before the IPO, Tencent Mobility Limited holds a 5.76% stake in the company. In November 2025, another equity change occurred at Sinovant. Qiangang Investment transferred its 853,700 shares to Kangrui Jiyuan and exited the shareholder roster, cashing out 9 million yuan. The transfer price for Qiangang Investment's shares was 10.54 yuan per share, corresponding to a company valuation of 3.902 billion yuan, a 28.56% decrease from the post-investment valuation in February 2024.

Before the listing application, Qiang Jing directly held 0.82% of Sinovant's shares; by serving as the executive partner of Lipan Partnership, Youyao Partnership, Xinkang Weijian, Chenghuai Yangguan Partnership, and Youxiao Partnership, he controls 21.58%, 10.02%, 4.49%, 0.39%, and 0.11% of the company's shares, respectively. In total, Qiang Jing controls 37.41% of the voting rights. Simultaneously, Qiang Jing signed a concerted action agreement with Le Meijie, stipulating that Le Meijie must align his opinions with Qiang Jing's when exercising rights as a company shareholder and director. Le Meijie directly holds 5.52% of Sinovant's shares and, by serving as the executive partner of Hangzhou Kefeng Partnership, controls 4.12% of Sinovant's shares, resulting in a total controlled voting right proportion of 9.64%. In summary, Qiang Jing collectively controls 47.04% of the voting rights of Sinovant and is the company's actual controller.

Sinovant boasts a core team with high academic qualifications. Chairman Qiang Jing, born in 1982 and a native of Changzhou, Jiangsu, completed his bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees at top domestic universities, holding a Bachelor's degree in Pharmacy from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, a Master's degree in Financial Engineering Management from Fudan University, and a Ph.D. in Applied Economics from Tsinghua University. In July 2005, after graduating with his bachelor's degree, Qiang Jing worked briefly for one year at Citibank as a Risk Management Specialist before returning to campus for his master's studies. In July 2010, after completing his advanced degrees, Qiang Jing joined the research institute of CICC, where he worked for over seven years. When Sinovant was founded, Qiang Jing was still serving as a Managing Director at CICC and did not leave until March 2018. Tianyancha data shows that CICC's private equity fund, CICC Qide, currently holds a 1.1% stake in Sinovant. Co-founder Le Meijie currently serves as a Director and General Manager of Sinovant. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the School of Medicine of Zhejiang University and has held positions at several well-known pharmaceutical companies, including Sino-American Tianjin Smith Kline & French Laboratories Ltd., Bayer Healthcare, Shanghai Chengxin Biotechnology, Jiangsu Enhua Pharmaceutical, and Zhejiang Yuchuan Pharmaceutical. YONGHAN HU, a US citizen, serves as a Director, Vice President, and Chief Technology Officer of Sinovant. He holds a Bachelor's degree in Chemical Physics from the Department of Modern Chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China, a Master's degree in Physical Chemistry from the Fujian Institute of Research on the Structure of Matter, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Southern California. YONGHAN HU, now 58 years old, has extensive research experience. Before joining Sinovant in October 2017, he served as Principal Scientist and Senior Principal Scientist at Wyeth Research in the US, Senior Principal Scientist at Pfizer Inc. in the US, and Executive Director and Vice President of Drug Discovery at Shanghai ChemPartner. Company Director Wei Haiyang, who has the right of abode outside mainland China, holds a Bachelor's degree in Neurobiology and Biophysics from the University of Science and Technology of China, and a Master's and Ph.D. in Anatomy and Neurobiology from the University of Louisville. He joined Sinovant in August 2021 and took over as a Director after Wu Yuchuan resigned in December 2023, currently serving as Vice President of Biology. Wei Haiyang, YONGHAN HU, and Dr. Chen Liqun are the core technical personnel of Sinovant. Yun Song serves as a Director, Board Secretary, and CFO of Sinovant, holding a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Chemical Engineering and Technology from Tsinghua University. He was a colleague of Qiang Jing at CICC, where he held positions as Manager, Senior Manager, and Deputy General Manager in the Strategic Research Department and Investment Banking Department. After leaving CICC, Yun Song worked at Zhuhai Shangcheng Investment Consulting and Shanghai Xingze Investment before joining Sinovant in January 2020. Another company director, Xie Ronggang, was nominated by shareholder Tanying Investment. Since 2019, he has served as Senior Investment Manager, Managing Director, and Partner at Shanghai Zhenxingu Investment Management Co., Ltd. In 2024, Wei Haiyang was the highest-paid director at Sinovant, with an annual salary of 2.3138 million yuan. Additionally, Le Meijie, Chen Liqun, Yun Song, Qiang Jing, and YONGHAN HU received salaries of 1.9186 million yuan, 1.8435 million yuan, 1.8284 million yuan, and 1.4296 million yuan, respectively.

Sinovant's cumulative BD transaction value amounts to approximately 15 billion yuan. R&D expenses over three and a half years reached 1.45 billion yuan. Sinovant is an innovative drug company focused on disease areas and addressing major unmet clinical needs. Based on three core technology platforms – the "Small Molecule Targeted Drug Development Platform," the "Complex Antibody Drug Development Platform (eMAB)," and the "Targeted Protein Degradation Platform (eGLUE)" – Sinovant has strategically positioned itself in promising therapeutic areas such as precision oncology and multi-drug resistant bacterial infections. As of the signing date of the prospectus, Sinovant has developed 10 primary drug candidates targeting areas including oncology and anti-infectives. The clinical progress of its pipelines is relatively advanced both domestically and globally, forming an innovative drug pipeline梯队 of "1 (NDA) + 3 (Phase III) + N." Among them, XNW5004 (an EZH2 inhibitor), XNW27011 (a Claudin 18.2-targeting ADC), and XNW28012 (a TF-targeting ADC) in the oncology field are all in Phase III or pivotal clinical study stages, expected to be launched domestically between 2027 and 2028. The New Drug Application (NDA) for imipenem/cilastatin (injection) in the anti-infective field has been accepted, with approval expected in 2026. As the company's main drug pipelines are still in the R&D stage, Sinovant has not yet commenced commercial sales. The company positions its business model as "R&D-driven, integrated BD and sales growth," and has preliminarily achieved an operational cycle of "funding R&D through R&D" via BD transactions. Before the listing application, Sinovant had four ongoing pipeline out-licensing collaborations or transfers, with partners including renowned multinational pharmaceutical companies like Astellas and well-known listed domestic pharmaceutical companies like EVEREST MED and SINOMAB BIO-B. The cumulative agreement value (including upfront payments, milestone payments, etc.) has reached $2.139 billion, equivalent to approximately 14.973 billion yuan. Among these, in May of this year, Sinovant signed an authorization agreement with Astellas for XNW27011, with a total agreement value (including upfront and milestone payments, excluding sales royalties) of $1.536 billion. The company has received an upfront payment of $130 million (pre-tax) under this agreement and expects that BD-related intellectual property authorization or transfer income will lead the company to achieve overall profitability at the operating level (after deducting non-recurring gains and losses) in 2025.

Relying on out-licensing, Sinovant generated revenue of 19.5 million yuan in 2022. From 2022 to the first half of 2025 (hereinafter referred to as the "Reporting Period"), Sinovant received other income of 6.7651 million yuan, 8.7625 million yuan, 24.7636 million yuan, and 537,200 yuan, totaling 40.8284 million yuan, primarily consisting of government grants related to daily activities. Additionally, Sinovant recorded investment income of 38.3355 million yuan, 1.6419 million yuan, 5.239 million yuan, and 43,500 yuan, totaling 45.2599 million yuan, from equity investments in Suzhou Yilian Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and the disposal of financial assets held for trading. During the Reporting Period, Sinovant continued to report net losses, with net losses of 463 million yuan, 427 million yuan, 386 million yuan, and 373 million yuan in each respective period. Sinovant has chosen the fifth set of listing standards for the STAR Market, which does not impose mandatory thresholds for revenue and net profit. R&D expenses constitute Sinovant's largest expenditure item, amounting to 464 million yuan, 368 million yuan, 387 million yuan, and 235 million yuan in each period of the Reporting Period, primarily including employee compensation, clinical service fees, technical service fees, material costs, energy costs, depreciation, and amortization. Among these, technical service fees mainly comprise outsourced R&D service expenses, including pharmaceutical research, toxicology studies, efficacy studies, pharmacokinetic studies, production preparation services, and some commissioned research during the PCC stage. These amounted to 184 million yuan, 80.3759 million yuan, 80.6455 million yuan, and 42.3336 million yuan in each period of the Reporting Period, totaling 387 million yuan.

As of the end of June 2025, Sinovant had 291 R&D personnel, accounting for 87.65% of its total workforce. Sinovant has only one salesperson. From 2023 to the first half of 2025, the company's sales expenses, including sales staff compensation and travel expenses, were 1.1181 million yuan, 1.564 million yuan, and 868,300 yuan, respectively.

Sinovant's cash-to-short-term debt ratio is 2.25. The asset-liability ratio reached 89.05%. Sinovant's net cash flow from operating activities continued to be negative, with net outflows of 419 million yuan, 371 million yuan, 349 million yuan, and 250 million yuan in each period. Net cash flow from investing activities has turned positive since 2024, with net inflows of 178 million yuan and 2.0568 million yuan in 2024 and the first half of 2025, respectively. In 2022 and 2023, there were net outflows of 62.5819 million yuan and 69.3365 million yuan, primarily due to the purchase of wealth management products and payments for the acquisition and construction of fixed assets, intangible assets, and other long-term assets. In 2022 and 2023, Sinovant's holdings of wealth management products amounted to 283 million yuan and 236 million yuan, respectively, decreasing to 3.7 million yuan as of the end of June 2025. During the same period, the company's construction in progress was 257 million yuan and 119 million yuan. In 2023, fixed assets increased by 1300.69% year-on-year to 279 million yuan, mainly due to the main building of the company's production base reaching the预定 usable state and being transferred to fixed assets. Furthermore, net cash flow from financing activities saw significant continuous inflows due to equity financing and borrowings, amounting to 316 million yuan, 553 million yuan, 242 million yuan, and 286 million yuan in each period of the Reporting Period. During the period, Sinovant's monetary funds continuously increased, rising from 118 million yuan at the beginning of the period to 340 million yuan at the end of the period. As of the end of June 2025, monetary funds accounted for 77.84% of current assets. However, due to borrowings, Sinovant's debt scale also increased simultaneously. Long-term debt rose from 268 million yuan to 670 million yuan, accounting for 66.92% of total liabilities. As of the end of June 2025, Sinovant's total short-term debt was 150 million yuan, while cash and cash equivalents stood at 337 million yuan. Cash was 2.25 times the short-term debt, indicating relatively low short-term repayment pressure. At the end of the period, Sinovant's asset-liability ratio was as high as 89.05%, a significant increase of nearly 40 percentage points from 2022, nearly double the average asset-liability ratio of 46.13% for comparable companies in the same industry. Simultaneously, Sinovant's current ratio and quick ratio decreased from 2.61 and 2.35 in 2022 to 1.4 and 1.23 in the first half of 2025, respectively.

For this STAR Market IPO, Sinovant plans to raise 2.94 billion yuan, of which 2.34 billion yuan will be used for new drug R&D projects, and the remaining 600 million yuan is entirely planned for supplementing working capital.

Sinovant faces an ongoing intellectual property lawsuit while applying for its STAR Market IPO. The prospectus discloses that in October 2024, Hangzhou New Element Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Hangzhou New Element"), as the plaintiff, filed a lawsuit with the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court against Sinovant, Qiang Jing, Le Meijie, and Wu Yuchuan as co-defendants, citing trade secret infringement as the cause of action. The plaintiff requested that the defendants: immediately cease the alleged trade secret infringement, including but not limited to immediately stopping the R&D and promotion activities of the involved product; immediately destroy the involved technical materials and production equipment; and jointly and severally compensate for economic losses and reasonable expenses totaling 50 million yuan. In January 2025, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court accepted the above case. In November of the same year, Hangzhou New Element withdrew the lawsuit but filed a new lawsuit in the same month. The court, claims, defendants, and cause of action remained unchanged from the previous lawsuit. During the proceedings, in August 2025, Sinovant sued Hangzhou New Element, its legal representative, and actual controller, Shi Dongfang, in the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court for malicious prosecution of intellectual property litigation causing damage liability. Sinovant alleged that Hangzhou New Element's lawsuit lacked basis and exceeded the statute of limitations, constituting malicious litigation, and demanded that the defendants jointly compensate for economic losses and reasonable维权 expenses totaling 50 million yuan, issue a public apology in national media, and bear all litigation costs. In September 2025, the Shanghai Intellectual Property Court accepted this case. As of the signing date of the prospectus, the aforementioned cases were still under trial, and the court had not yet rendered a judgment.

Appendix: List of Intermediary Institutions for Sinovant's IPO Sponsor and Lead Underwriter: Guotai Haitong Securities Co., Ltd. Issuer's Legal Counsel: Zhong Lun Law Firm Auditor: Ernst & Young Hua Ming LLP (Special General Partnership) Appraisal Institution: Yinxin Assets Appraisal Co., Ltd.

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