A diabetes care company is about to go public! This year's revenue growth may exceed 20%, but the sustainability of growth is questionable.
Puan Medical's capitalization is progressing.
It is reported that on December 26, the listing committee of the Beijing Stock Exchange will hold a review meeting to examine Puan Medical's IPO application. For this IPO, the company plans to raise 395 million yuan, with Guojin Securities Co., Ltd. as the sponsor.
In terms of business layout, since its establishment in 2013, the company has continued to develop a series of diabetes care products such as insulin pen needles, blood lancets, and insulin syringes, targeting the diagnosis and treatment of chronic diseases such as diabetes, tumors, and gastrointestinal diseases, enriching its product matrix and showing a trend of business upgrading.
However, at this critical juncture of the IPO, the company's performance report is not particularly ideal, reflecting some hidden risks.
According to the prospectus, from 2022 to 2024 and the first half of 2025, Puan Medical's operating income reached 242 million yuan, 236 million yuan, 318 million yuan, and 178 million yuan, respectively, with net profits of 57.15 million yuan, 45.9041 million yuan, 64.879 million yuan, and 44.3299 million yuan, respectively. The performance volatility is quite noticeable.
Established a dominant position in insulin pen needles
Diabetes care is certainly not a small market.
According to IDF (International Diabetes Federation) statistics, the number of diabetic patients (20-79 years old) worldwide reached 536.6 million in 2021, accounting for about 7% of the global population, and is expected to grow to 783.7 million by 2045; China has the largest number of diabetic patients in the world.
With the continuous expansion of the patient population, targeted products such as insulin pen needles and insulin syringes also have a huge market space. QYResearch data shows that from 2022 to 2024, global sales of insulin pen needles were 8.81 billion, 9.436 billion, and 9.973 billion, respectively, while Puan Medical's sales of insulin pen needles reached 662 million, 753 million, and 1.175 billion, respectively, accounting for 7.52%, 7.98%, and 11.78% of the global market share.
From this, it can be seen that Puan Medical's influence in the diabetes care market is steadily increasing.
The product focus strategy should have played a significant role. According to the prospectus, in the first half of 2025, Puan Medical's insulin pen needle products accounted for 65.80% of its main business revenue, reflecting the company's dominant position.
Public information shows that Puan Medical is the first domestic company to launch safe auto-disposable pen needles in the Chinese market. In the U.S. market, it is also the second company after BD to launch double-protection safe auto-disposable pen needles and has applied for international patent protection.
In addition, focusing on insulin pen needles, Puan Medical has frequently iterated in recent years: on the basis of launching the cost-effective ordinary insulin pen needle IPN in 2013, it launched the single-protection safe insulin pen needle SPN in 2015, the double-protection safe insulin pen needle DPN in 2018, the triple-protection safe insulin pen needle TPN in 2020, the low-pain, low-pressure-mark large flat-head insulin pen needle NPN in 2022, the structurally enhanced and safer XPN based on TPN in 2023, the less painful five-cut large flat-head insulin pen needle QPN in 2024, and the precise, easy-to-use electronic insulin pen with real-time information transmission function in 2025, which can be used with insulin pen needles...
From this upgrade trend, Puan Medical is at the forefront of the insulin pen needle market and can capture significant incremental growth. However, judging from the current performance, even with dominant products, the company's stability is lacking.
Double-digit growth is still achievable, but sustainability is questionable
For the full-year performance in 2025, Puan Medical provided guidance in the prospectus: it expects to achieve operating income of 372-390 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.87%-22.52%, and net profit attributable to the parent company's owners of 84-94 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.47%-44.89%; it expects to achieve net profit attributable to the parent company's owners after deducting non-recurring gains and losses of 80-90 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.51%-34.45%.
While the performance growth is gratifying, the investment market wants to know: is such growth sustainable? This doubt mainly stems from the risks of Puan Medical's reliance on a single product and market.
Product-wise. Although Puan Medical's prospectus mentions that its main products include diabetes care medical devices (insulin pen needles, safe insulin pen needles, insulin syringes, and blood lancets, etc.), general drug delivery and infusion medical devices (safety needles, various conventional and safety syringes, venous blood collection needles, vascular access, etc.), and minimally invasive interventional medical devices (percutaneous interventional medical devices, endoscopic interventional medical devices), with diverse categories, the insulin pen needle remains the core product.
If this key business is impacted, the company will find it difficult to grow steadily. Now, some risks have already emerged.
For example, Puan Medical's prospectus points out that in the field of diabetes care, its competitors include global industry giants such as BD (U.S.), MTD (Italy), B. Braun (Germany), and Novo Nordisk (Denmark), as well as other ODM manufacturers, and industry competition is intensifying.
Perhaps affected by this, from 2022 to 2024 and the first half of 2025, the average unit price of Puan Medical's conventional insulin pen needle IPN products showed an overall downward trend, at 16.94 yuan/100 pieces, 15.41 yuan/100 pieces, 12.98 yuan/100 pieces, and 13.95 yuan/100 pieces, respectively, especially in the domestic market, where the unit price decreased year by year, at 23.45 yuan/100 pieces, 21.12 yuan/100 pieces, 17.97 yuan/100 pieces, and 16.56 yuan/100 pieces during the reporting period, leading to corresponding fluctuations in the company's profitability.
Market layout-wise. The prospectus shows that from 2022 to 2024 and the first half of 2025, Puan Medical's overseas sales revenue accounted for 77.35%, 75.59%, 78.21%, and 78.30% of its main business revenue, respectively, with products exported to more than 70 countries or regions, with the European market accounting for the highest proportion, followed by North America. However, with changes in the international trade environment, Puan Medical's situation is not optimistic.
"Since 2024, the tariff measures and trade policies issued by the U.S. government involving products such as syringes have had a certain adverse impact on the sales of some of the company's products exported to the U.S. market that are subject to additional tariffs. The policy regulations issued by the EU in June 2025 imposed certain restrictions on Chinese companies' direct participation in public medical device procurement tenders in the EU market above a certain scale."
Coupled with issues such as insufficient self-brand building under the OEM sales model and R&D investment being lower than sales expenses, the current capital market's attitude towards Puan Medical may be more worried than hopeful.
Source: Pharmaceutical Research Society
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