There is a company that is both the developer of the world's first hepatitis B drug successfully developed and launched through a liver-targeting technology platform, and a would-be IPO enterprise that successfully registered but failed to launch its offering before the approval document expired. Xi'an Xintong Pharmaceutical Research Co., Ltd. (hereinafter "Xintong Pharmaceutical") has had a rather bumpy road on the STAR Market.

Recently, the company updated its prospectus in a renewed attempt to sprint toward the STAR Market, planning to raise 900 million yuan. From 2023 to 2025 (the "reporting period"), the company accumulated losses of nearly 200 million yuan, its core product has been on the market for just over a year, and its revenue lifeline hinges on a single drug and a single distributor. That distributor is itself loss-making, and whether this one drug can support a STAR Market company has become the focus of scrutiny from both the market and regulators.

In terms of company quality, this high-tech enterprise, which has focused on liver disease drug research and development for more than 20 years, has performed excellently in scientific research. Its Class 1 new drug, tenofovir amibufenamide tablets (brand name Xinshumu), was approved for marketing in October 2024. It is the world's first targeted hepatitis B drug successfully developed and launched through a liver-targeting technology platform, has been listed in the National Major Science and Technology Projects for "Major New Drug Creation" under the "12th Five-Year Plan" and "13th Five-Year Plan" consecutively, was included in the national medical insurance catalog in 2025, and appeared in the internationally top-tier journal Hepatology.

But beyond the impressive technology labels, commercialization and profitability remain unresolved challenges.

Three years of losses nearing 200 million yuan, with "single-source" revenue

On the financial data level, in 2023, 2024, and 2025, Xintong Pharmaceutical's operating revenue was 11.9782 million yuan, 3.0187 million yuan, and 32.0147 million yuan, respectively, while net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was -62.2925 million yuan, -79.3555 million yuan, and -54.6352 million yuan, respectively, with cumulative losses over three years of about 196 million yuan. As of the end of 2025, the company's accumulated unrecovered losses at the consolidated statement level reached 388 million yuan, making it unable to pay dividends in the short term.

The revenue structure is the most prominent point of attention. Of the main business revenue in 2025, sales revenue from Xinshumu accounted for 65.25%, and agency royalty revenue accounted for 34.22%, together totaling 99.47%. This drug only began sales in December 2024, with sales revenue of only 1.0144 million yuan in 2024, rising to 20.8881 million yuan in 2025. In other words, the company's revenue is almost entirely supported by a single product less than a year old. Among its other seven pipeline products, four are in the clinical trial stage and three are in the preclinical research stage, still far from generating revenue at scale.

Channel concentration further magnifies the risk: the company has exactly one distributor. As mentioned earlier, more than one-third of the company's revenue comes from agency fees. Kaiji Xincheng is the exclusive distributor of the Xinshumu product. In 2024 and 2025, revenue from Kaiji Xincheng and its subsidiaries accounted for as much as 94.09% and 98.88%, respectively.

However, the operating condition of this distributor, on which high hopes were placed, is not healthy. Xintong Pharmaceutical's IPO prospectus shows that in 2025, Kaiji Xincheng's operating revenue was approximately 78.1186 million yuan, while its net profit was -53.2843 million yuan (this financial data is unaudited). With the dual dependence of a single product and a single channel, once the agency relationship changes, revenue could fall off a cliff directly.

Alongside this, Xintong Pharmaceutical's accounts receivable increased from 1.3031 million yuan at the end of 2023 to 1.63 million yuan at the end of 2024, then jumped to 16.6586 million yuan at the end of 2025. At the same time, the company's net cash flow from operating activities during the reporting period was -27.2336 million yuan, -40.4104 million yuan, and -107.1664 million yuan, respectively, with operations continuously "bleeding."

Attempting another breakthrough after approval document expiration

Xintong Pharmaceutical's IPO journey has indeed been full of twists and turns. In December 2021, the company's IPO application was accepted for the first time. In December 2022, its first listing review meeting was postponed for deliberation. In January 2023, it passed the second review meeting, and in April of the same year, its registration became effective. However, within 12 months after the registration became effective, the company never launched its offering, and the registration approval document expired on April 25, 2024, which the industry regarded as a landmark case of approval expiration under the full registration system.

In this comeback attempt, the fundraising scale has shrunk by about 30% compared with the previous attempt, from 1.279 billion yuan to 900 million yuan. Xintong Pharmaceutical's IPO prospectus shows that the company's core technology system originated from a reverse acquisition in 2015 of the poorly operated Kaihua Company, and the HepDirect technology and related product pipeline were all introduced through licensing from the U.S. company LGND, rather than being entirely independently originated. The company's innovation quality and independence have therefore also drawn inquiries from regulators.

Its fund arrangements have likewise sparked discussion. Among the fundraising projects, the innovative drug industrialization production base is planned to receive 200 million yuan, but the land for the related fundraising project has already been mortgaged for a bank loan. At the same time, according to company disclosures, at the end of each period during the reporting period, trading financial assets reached 86.9745 million yuan, 93.2385 million yuan, and 225 million yuan, respectively. Despite the relatively large scale of wealth management funds on its books, the company still plans to raise 200 million yuan to supplement working capital. Is there really a necessity for raising funds to supplement liquidity?

The fifth set of STAR Market standards opens a financing channel for innovative drug companies that are not yet profitable, but hard technology also needs to make economic sense. Whether Xintong Pharmaceutical, which has bet more than 90% of its revenue on a single product and a single loss-making distributor, can leverage market recognition with a new round of fundraising remains an open question. At present, the company has just recently concluded a round of review inquiries, and whether it can fully explain the doubts may determine whether this second attempt can reach the finish line.