Singularity Approaches: Growth Hormone Leader Reinvents Itself with a Three-Pronged Strategy for a Comeback

On April 21, CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH released its 2025 annual report. Over the past year,Company revenue still maintained a scale of tens of billions, reaching 12.083 billion yuan,The revenue share of growth hormone in the gene engineering/biopharmaceutical business segment declined by 12.50%.

However, the foundation of the growth hormone business remains unshaken. Despite facing disruptions from factors such as centralized procurement impacts and changes in the competitive landscape, GenSci still achieved a revenue of 9.819 billion yuan in 2025, accounting for 81.3% of CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH's total revenue. The structure, however, has changed significantly from before: apart from the contribution of "JinSaiZeng," the core product in the growth hormone category,Last year, the proportion of innovative drugs in GenSci's revenue increased significantly: three innovative products were approved for marketing, and in January last year, it also secured the exclusive rights to the only cachexia treatment drug in China.Sales for the year quickly exceeded 100 million yuan, injecting strong momentum into innovative transformation.

A true leader will never be content to "rest on their laurels" of past achievements. In recent years, CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH has heavily invested in research and development. Since 2022, the company's R&D investment has exceeded 10% of total revenue. Last year, this proportion rose to 24.30%, a year-on-year increase of 9.16%, with an investment reaching 2.936 billion yuan, setting a historical record. With such significant investment, there must be corresponding output.Last year, CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH obtained 21 clinical trial approvals, surpassing the total of the previous three years. This includes GenSci134, a super-long-acting monthly formulation of a growth hormone receptor agonist-like drug, and GenSci074, a menopausal hot flash drug with a sales peak potential exceeding $2 billion, both of which saw clinical progress last year.The company actively strengthens multiple distinctive drug R&D technology platforms (long-acting multi-antibody, long-acting sustained release, liver-targeted siRNA delivery), laying a solid foundation for creating significantly differentiated drug molecules.

When innovation沉淀as a core competence, "going global" becomes a natural progression. In December last year, GenSci completed its first对外授权. It reached an exclusive licensing agreement with Yarrow Bioscience for the humanized thyroid-stimulating hormone receptor antagonistic monoclonal antibody GenSci098 outside of Greater China, with a potential transaction value as high as $1.365 billion.

For CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH, 2025 is not so much a period of "transition pain" as it is a "singularity year" for proactive change and rebounding from the bottom.

CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH

Continuously Breaking Through the Growth "Bottleneck" Under the Inertia of Success

Growth hormone was once a phenomenal single product in China's pharmaceutical market and the growth cornerstone of CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH over the past two decades. However, just last year, signs of loosening appeared in this business: the revenue of the gene engineering/biopharmaceuticals sector, where growth hormone belongs, reached 10.416 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.5%.

This year, the primary competitive goal of GenSci's growth hormone is to "accelerate and shift gears."In September last year, the long-acting growth hormone "GenSci Enhance" voluntarily reduced its price to pass the national negotiation.Becoming a landmark event in the industry. The market entry of both short-acting growth hormone powder and aqueous solutions has exceeded 20 years, which, while being a source of pride for an era, indicates that the market has been fully developed and entered a mature phase. Since 2021, over the past five years, China has initiated multiple rounds of bulk procurement calls for short-acting growth hormones, with increasing competition.

Long-acting growth hormone is no longer dominated solely by GenSci, and its inclusion in medical insurance reflects the adaptability of Changchun GeneScience Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. The nearly 50% price reduction has indeed placed considerable short-term performance pressure on GenSci.

GenSci has carefully considered this: exchanging price cuts for volume might help the company's performance find a new growth turning point.

According to data from Guanyan Report, the market share of "GenSci Growth" hovered around 0.9% from 2015 to 2020, with the market mainly dominated by lower-priced short-acting varieties. Medical insurance has shifted the sales logic of long-acting growth hormones from "consumption upgrade" to "universal choice," and the market is expected to change rapidly. According to Frost & Sullivan,By 2030, the market size of long-acting growth hormone is expected to reach 21.1 billion yuan, accounting for approximately 73.8% of the total market value of growth hormone in China.

The pharmaceuticals industry has seen countless cases of product technology upgrades driven by rising economic levels and technological evolution. By the end of the last century, several third-generation insulins had already successfully entered the market. However, it was not until around 2007 that developed economies like the United States began widespread adoption of third-generation insulins. This delay was due partly to competition-driven price reductions and partly to an increase in options brought about by greater supply. Today, long-acting growth hormones are at a similar turning point.

GenSci is currently the only pharmaceutical company that simultaneously possesses both long-acting and short-acting growth hormone product portfolios within the scope of medical insurance.With channel advantages, it can achieve synergistic and complementary scaling. Less than one month after "Jinsai Zeng" entered the medical insurance system, it had already been admitted to 328 hospitals, including several top-tier tertiary hospitals, significantly saving promotional resources. Meanwhile, according to the first quarter report data of 2026, both the sales expenses and management expenses of CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH have dropped significantly, with medical insurance growth exceeding expectations. Based on changes in the competitive landscape and consumer demand, GenSci proactively reduced the price of its product entering the medical insurance system as a strategic retreat to advance. This move has made "Jinsai Zeng" the globally original, highest quality, most cost-effective, widest coverage, most indications, and longest usage history long-acting growth hormone, firmly safeguarding the brand's moat, demonstrating the adaptability and leadership of a true industry leader during the product cycle.

With the hospital channels established through growth hormone, GenSci's other innovative products are also being rapidly introduced into hospitals, offering considerable room for imagination.

Innovative drugs account for nearly 70%

Multiple Segments Progressing Steadily in Commercialization

In the field of innovative drugs, GenSci has maintained positive growth in R&D investment for 13 consecutive years, successfully expanding into several important sectors such as gout, cancer supportive care, assisted reproduction, and allergy.

Four core products performed outstandingly:Jinbeixin (Fuxinqibai Monoclonal Antibody) —— The first anti-IL-1β monoclonal antibody in China, used for acute gouty arthritis.Work，Expected to be approved for marketing in the second half of 2025; the world's only "one injection lasts half a year" long-acting anti-inflammatory drug reduces the risk of recurrence by nearly 90%. There are over 14.66 million gout patients in China, and according to Frost & Sullivan estimates, the market size will reach 10.8 billion yuan by 2030. There are currently no domestically produced drugs targeting this point in China. The company has assembled a sales team of two hundred people to quickly cover end users. Earnings reports revealed that the product's growth exceeded 60% quarter-on-quarter in Q1 this year, showing significant volume expansion. It is expected to become a blockbuster product with annual sales exceeding 1 billion yuan.

Meisya —— An upgraded product with exclusive nanocrystal technology in China for tumor supportive care.Not only can it improve the quality of life for patients, but data also shows it can extend patient survival (OS), leading to a supply shortage after being included in the 2025 National Medical Insurance Catalog.GenSci——AuxiliaryAuxiliary BirthAchieve "long-acting replacement for daily injections" in the reproductive field.AntoDa —— Desensitization therapy provides a causal treatment solution for over 250 million people with allergies.Strategic cooperation introduced with Danish ALK-Abello, commercialization is proceeding steadily.

GenSci's innovative drug portfolio focuses not on "blindly expanding" or engaging in cutthroat competition with other innovative pharmaceutical companies in the treatment sector. Instead, it leverages its existing advantages in women and children’s healthcare channels and a diverse product mix to mitigate risks and enhance business resilience, better achieving quality-of-life management across all life stages. In short: enabling children to achieve normal height, empowering women to navigate every stage of life with confidence, freeing patients from pain and discomfort, and ensuring everyone enjoys a healthy, dignified, and respectful daily life.

In 2026, the pharmaceutical industry is at a critical period of profound transformation. The deepening of centralized procurement accelerates the clearance of generic drugs; while the policy clearly states "no centralized procurement for innovation," building a "firewall" for genuine innovation. Under the "replace old industries with new ones" pattern, innovation has become the only core competitiveness for pharmaceutical companies.

GenSci's excellent performance in the first quarter has hit the right tempo of the times.Sub-sectors represented by Jinbeixin, Mesia, long-acting ovulation stimulation Jinsaijia, Jinfuning, and progesterone II Jinsaixin continue to break new ground.The innovative advantages of GenSci's growth hormone have led to a leap in the proportion of revenue from innovative drugs.2In the first quarter of 2026, innovative drug revenue accounted for nearly 70% of total income.According to statistics from third-party institutions, in 2024, the proportion of innovative drug revenue for leading pharmaceutical companies in China generally falls within the 50% to 70% range. GenSci's share of innovative drugs has reached the upper limit of the industry. This data marks a breakthrough in the company's transformation into a "platform-based innovative pharmaceutical enterprise." Innovative drugs have become the core driver of performance growth, and the company is expected to enter a virtuous cycle of "innovation-revenue-research and development."

From relying on a single product to possessing a matrix of multiple innovative drugs, GenSci's transformation epitomizes the upgrading of China's pharmaceutical industry. With nearly 70% of revenue coming from innovative drugs, this not only demonstrates GenSci's determination and boldness to fully transition towards innovation but also sends a strong signal:The Golden Age of China's Innovative Drugs Has Arrived. Leading innovative pharmaceutical companies represented by GenSci are guiding China's pharmaceutical industry from "manufacturing" to "creation," occupying an increasingly important position in the global pharmaceutical landscape.

Uncover the Underlying Logic of R&D

Multi-pipeline Collaborative Development

Continuous high-intensity R&D investment is the major prerequisite for the operation of the "diversification + full lifecycle management" system. By adopting the "self-developed + BD" dual-engine model as the main R&D framework, the company positions itself in niche blue ocean markets where the competitive landscape has not yet solidified and clinical needs remain unmet. In 2025, the company’s R&D investment increased by 9.16% year-on-year, reaching 2.936 billion yuan.Since 2021, CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH has invested over 10.7 billion yuan in R&D. In the past three years, CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH's annual R&D investment as a percentage of revenue has continued to rise, reaching 24.30% in 2025.Provided stable and predictable resource support for platform-based innovation.

Following this R&D approach, GenSci has initiated the engineering design of the ultra-long-acting multispecific antibody platform EvoMab™, and GenSci161 is another significant advancement by GenSci in the IL-1 inflammatory pathway, following Fuxinqibai monoclonal antibody.

GenSci161 expands the target from the single IL-1β target to the dual IL-1α/β targets,对标的是艾伯维创新药ABT-981, for the treatment of hidradenitis suppurativa and other diseases. With preclinical in vivo and in vitro data, GenSci161 can significantly extend the half-life, enabling subcutaneous administration every 8 to 12 weeks, and demonstrates favorable activity profiles in multiple disease models, offering a promising new long-term treatment option for patients with endometriosis and moderate to severe hidradenitis suppurativa.

GenSci's innovative model of rolling advancements on existing technology platforms not only significantly reduces trial-and-error costs but also greatly shortens development time, effectively creating a "replicable capability" for innovative drugs. GenSci has become one of the companies with the most comprehensive layout of R&D technology platforms in the industry and has preliminarily established a full-chain system of "technology platform-clinical translation-commercialization" along with a deeply integrated "industry-university-research-application" pathway, enabling generational upgrades around its competitive products.

For example, in the field of endocrinology and metabolism, the company can continuously enhance the barriers of its product portfolio. The company's most proficient long-acting peptide controlled-release technology, through the "combination" of three sub-platforms—the VHH platform, the fatty chain platform, and the prodrug platform—can be tailored to the specific characteristics of target products for targeted technical combinations to achieve long-acting sustained release. Products such as long-acting PTH (GenSci164) and IGF-1 (GenSci155) are based on the aforementioned platforms and are currently being actively prepared for entry into clinical trials.

Most importantly, the platform's innovative capabilities have laid a profound foundation for the company's future international integration. GenSci's extrahepatic siRNA platform, the GPODS™ platform, has formed a clear competitive advantage. By leveraging AI to design and screen small nucleic acids, the company significantly enhances the efficacy and stability of siRNA, expands the delivery system to tissues such as the lungs, adipose tissue, and the central nervous system (CNS), achieving a technological breakthrough in multi-tissue targeted delivery, and filling the technical gap in related fields in China.

"Magic Bullet" ADC is another hot field in the industry at present, with most institutions predicting that the global ADC market size will exceed 60 billion US dollars by 2030. GenSci's ADC technology platform HydroLock™ can solve problems such as poor plasma stability and high off-target effects of traditional ADCs through highly stable hydrophilic linkers. Currently, GenSci has entered the first echelon in the bispecific antibody-ADC field, holding the world's first EGFR/HER2 bispecific antibody-ADC drug GenSci139, the best-in-class FRα dual-epitope antibody-ADC drug GenSci140, and the best-in-class B7H3/PSMA bispecific antibody-ADC drug GenSci143. The preclinical data of these drugs all show superior anti-tumor activity, and they are currently in Phase I clinical trials.

In addition,The company also has multiple innovative R&D technology platforms, including a blood-brain barrier delivery technology platform, a T-Cell Engager technology platform, and a lysin technology platform.To provide continuous "living water" for future innovation. In the nearly 80 pipeline systems built under the framework of "multi-target coverage + full life cycle management," there are up to 35 Class 1 new drugs, of which 11 clinical pipelines have advanced to Phase III. The major direction of GenSci's innovation has been basically confirmed; what remains is simply to give time to innovation itself.

At present, GenSci has entered the value realization stage.By the end of 2025, GenSci's innovative drug GenSci098 achieved a BD deal worth up to $1.365 billion.The significance goes far beyond the monetary amount itself. GenSci has completed a major transformation from "bringing in" to "going out," indicating that the company's innovation capabilities have become a stable source of cash flow, opening up the imaginative space for a "third growth curve."

At the earnings conference, Jin Lei, General Manager of CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH, founder and Chief Scientist of GenSci, revealed: This year, GenSci's pipeline will enter a surge period — it is expected that 17 innovative molecules will enter clinical trials, covering more than 20 indications; the vast majority of which are FIC/BIC with enormous market potential. If the clinical data is impressive, the room for imagination will be fully unlocked.

At the same time, "brand globalization" is becoming a steadfast strategy advanced by GenSci.According to CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH's Q1 2026 report, the net cash flow from operating activities increased by 92.27% year-on-year, reaching 1.098 billion yuan.With the continuous growth of overseas revenue over the years, CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH's international strategy has evolved from market expansion to a new phase characterized by technology export, global collaboration, and value sharing.

Looking back from 2026, despite the performance challenges, CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH has demonstrated remarkable resilience and has preliminarily completed a critical transition from single-driven growth to a diversified business model driven by "three horses": growth hormone, innovative drugs, and R&D BD revenue. CHANGCHUN HIGH-TECH's experience shows us that the transformation of leading enterprises hinges on determination and timing.

By reporter Miao Miao

Editor | Jiang Yun, Jia Ting

Operation｜Li Muzi

Illustration | Visual China

Statement: Original content by Jian Shi Ju, please do not reprint without permission.

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