The "Nine Country Kill" of Tongyan Injection is imminent, how will IMEIK face the game?

The pressure on the former leading player in the upstream medical beauty sector has increased. In the first half of this year, IMEIK (300896.SZ) achieved revenue and net profit attributable to shareholders of 1.299 billion yuan and 789 million yuan, respectively, down 21.59% and 29.57% year-on-year. Main products have all performed poorly. In the first half of 2025, revenue from solution-type injection products, including HiTi, and gel-type injection products, mainly represented by RuBai TianShi, reached 744 million yuan and 493 million yuan, respectively, both shrinking by nearly 1/4 year-on-year. This is partly due to the impact of slowing end consumption, but more importantly, it is because the approval speed of competing products has accelerated, gradually eroding IMEIK's market share. Taking the competing products of RuBai TianShi as an example, in less than 7 months this year, the National Medical Products Administration has approved the market launch of four types of RuBai TianShi from Sihuan Pharmaceutical (0460.HK), Lepu Medical (300003.SZ), Korea PRP Co., Ltd., and Jiangsu Xihong Biomedical Co., Ltd. Currently, there are a total of 9 approved RuBai TianShi products on the market, leading to fierce competition. "The overall performance of the company is under pressure. First, the industry end is still affected by the downward pressure on consumer spending. Second, the number of approved medical beauty products is increasing, intensifying the competitive landscape, while the company's own product pipeline is in a transitional phase between old and new," pointed out Zhang Junhao and others, analysts in the beauty care industry at Guosen Securities. In the second half of the year, the main highlight of IMEIK's performance will still be its acquired RuBai TianShi product AestheFill. In July of this year, IMEIK completed a transaction to acquire 85% of the shares of the Korean medical beauty company REGEN for $190 million, securing its core product AestheFill. At that time, due to the fact that the agent for AestheFill in China was *ST SuWu (600200.SH), there was still uncertainty in the market regarding how much revenue IMEIK could derive from it. However, with IMEIK recently terminating its contract with *ST SuWu and reclaiming all related authorizations for exclusive distribution of AestheFill in mainland China, the subsequent revenue from this product is expected to boost IMEIK's performance. IMEIK confirmed to Xinfeng that AestheFill's revenue will be included in the financial statements in the second half of the year. From its launch in April 2024 to the end of March this year, AestheFill's sales revenue in mainland China has exceeded 400 million yuan, which is expected to provide more room for performance growth for IMEIK in the second half of the year. Multiple industry insiders told Xinfeng that due to the increasing number of approved RuBai TianShi products, price reductions in the second half of the year may be inevitable. However, IMEIK is currently the only upstream medical beauty materials company in the market that possesses both RuBai TianShi and AestheFill. Whether it can leverage this to achieve "volume through price" in the fierce price war remains to be seen