From once being the "vaccine king" to now the "loss king" of A-shares in the pharmaceutical sector, ZHIFEI-BIOL has almost "collapsed" overnight. Recently, the company's financial report revealed that its net loss last year reached an astonishing 14.7 billion yuan, averaging over 40 million yuan lost per day. This is not only the first annual loss since its listing but also the largest annual loss in the history of the A-share pharmaceutical sector. Additionally, in the first quarter of this year, the company reported revenue of 2.15 billion yuan, but continued to incur a net loss of 388 million yuan.

Moreover, shortly after the financial report was released, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange issued a regulatory letter, specifically criticizing ZHIFEI-BIOL for "illegally correcting" its performance over the past nearly six years (from 2020 to the third quarter of 2025). Now, ZHIFEI-BIOL's total market value has shrunk to only 33.7 billion yuan, a drop of 90% from its peak. What exactly happened to this vaccine giant?

Success and Failure Both Stem from Agency

In the industry’s view, it is not surprising that the once 300 billion yuan market value "vaccine king" has now fallen from grace.

In 2025, ZHIFEI-BIOL faced its first historic major loss since its listing in 2010. Recently, the company released its 2025 annual report, showing that the total operating revenue for the year was 8.958 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 65.61%; the net loss attributable to the parent company was 14.723 billion yuan, with a non-recurring net loss of 14.744 billion yuan, averaging over 40 million yuan lost per day.

The direct driver of this massive loss was an asset impairment loss exceeding 10 billion yuan reported in the 2025 financial report.

In 2025, the company made an asset impairment provision of 14.128 billion yuan, including inventory impairment provisions and contract performance cost impairment provisions of 13.618 billion yuan, and HPV vaccine-related provisions of 12.766 billion yuan.

What does this huge asset impairment mean? Simply put, it means that the vaccines purchased in the past based on high prosperity expectations must adjust their book value to align with their true realizable value when market prices decline, vaccination demand weakens, and risks of approaching expiration increase. After all, vaccines are not like liquor; they cannot appreciate in value over time. Factors such as expiration dates, cold chain logistics, and batch release schedules can compress the sales window, so once inventory turnover is out of control, the profit and loss statement can be quickly dragged down In fact, the sharp decline in ZHIFEI-BIOL's performance is closely related to its excessive reliance on agency-imported vaccines.

In 2017, Chairman Jiang Rensheng personally went to the United States to obtain the exclusive agency rights for Merck's HPV vaccine in China. With the market scarcity of the nine-valent and four-valent vaccines, the company experienced explosive growth, with revenue soaring from less than 500 million yuan in 2016 to 52.963 billion yuan in 2023, net profit exceeding 8.1 billion yuan, and market capitalization once reaching 360 billion yuan, firmly securing its position as the leading private vaccine company in China.

However, the changes in the industry came faster than anyone expected. Between 2020 and 2022, domestic competitors' two-valent HPV vaccines were successively approved for market entry, leading to multiple "price wars" in the competition for market share, which directly impacted ZHIFEI-BIOL.

In 2024, the batch issuance volume of the four-valent HPV vaccine it represents was only about 466,000 doses, a year-on-year drop of 95.5%; the batch issuance volume of the nine-valent HPV vaccine was about 31.14 million doses, a year-on-year decrease of 14.8%.

In June 2025, the domestic nine-valent HPV vaccine was launched at a price of 499 yuan per dose, less than 40% of the price of the imported nine-valent vaccine. At the same time, as the supply gradually became sufficient, the once "hard-to-get" nine-valent HPV vaccine suddenly became unsellable.

Even with the drastic changes in the market, ZHIFEI-BIOL still had to grit its teeth and purchase. According to the agreement, the company needs to procure about 32.6 billion yuan in 2024, about 26 billion yuan in 2025, and about 17.9 billion yuan in 2026, totaling approximately 76.5 billion yuan over three years. By the end of the third quarter of 2025, the inventory in ZHIFEI-BIOL's warehouse had piled up to 20.25 billion yuan, accounting for more than 40% of total assets.

In the agency agreement signed by both parties, ZHIFEI-BIOL has no pricing power, no control over supply rhythm, and no waiver of breach of contract rights, while Merck enjoys guaranteed income, leaving ZHIFEI-BIOL to bear all market risks, inventory risks, and expiration risks. Success came from the agency, and failure also stemmed from it; the fall to the bottom today was actually a "script" that had long been written.

Facing the "darkest hour," hoping for self-rescue through independent research and development

Not only has the company's performance plummeted, but recently, a regulatory letter from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange suddenly landed, pushing the once "vaccine king" ZHIFEI-BIOL back into the spotlight.

The Shenzhen Stock Exchange pointed out that during the six-year accounting period from 2020 to the third quarter of 2025, the company had multiple accounting errors, including inaccurate recognition of service fee income, failure to consider the impact of post-period returns, and adjustments to supplementary information in the cash flow statement, leading to retrospective adjustments of the relevant financial statements. Chairman Jiang Rensheng, President Jiang Lingfeng, and Chief Financial Officer Li Zhenjing were all named.

The issue arose at the end of April when ZHIFEI-BIOL announced that it needed to revise its financial statements from 2020 to the third quarter of 2025. The announcement stated that these corrections did not constitute significant accounting errors and would not change the nature of profits and losses for each period, with a minimal impact on net profit

However, in the regulatory letter issued by the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, it pointed out that its behavior constitutes "violation correction" and required the company and relevant responsible persons to "learn from the lessons, rectify in a timely manner, and prevent the recurrence of the above problems."

Industry experts stated that against the backdrop of a performance crash in 2025 and continued losses in the first quarter of 2026, this regulatory letter is like adding insult to injury. It undermines not only the accuracy of financial data but also the basic trust of the capital market in the integrity of the company's management.

Accounting errors, massive losses, and industry pressure have led ZHIFEI-BIOL to encounter a "Waterloo" in the capital market, with stock prices plummeting continuously, shareholder wealth significantly shrinking, and a growing crisis of market trust.

As of the close on May 22, 2026, the company's stock price was 14.06 yuan per share, with a market value evaporating over 320 billion yuan from its peak of approximately 360 billion yuan in 2021, a decline of over 90%.

Recently, ZHIFEI-BIOL held a performance briefing, where faced with investors' sharp questioning of "from 1 million to only a few thousand," Chairman Jiang Rensheng expressed "deep understanding" and admitted that the company is experiencing the "darkest hour" of a deep industry adjustment.

In a recent apology letter to shareholders, ZHIFEI-BIOL stated that the company has deeply learned from the lessons brought by this crisis and will transform them into specific guidelines for future actions: strengthening insights into industry trends, economic fluctuations, and market dynamics; coordinating strategies for short-term liquidity safety and long-term healthy development; promoting deep synergy between commercialization capabilities and the competitiveness of self-developed products; and enhancing risk resolution strategies and execution capabilities.

ZHIFEI-BIOL stated that risk resolution has basically come to a close, but resolving risks is not the end; better development is fundamental. Now, the company has finally begun to explore the transition from agency sales to independent research and development. In 2025, its R&D expenses were 932 million yuan, with an R&D expense ratio of 10.4%, a significant increase from 3.9% in 2024, with investments mainly focused on two categories. The first category is vaccine products, with self-developed products such as the 15-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide conjugate vaccine and the quadrivalent meningococcal conjugate vaccine entering the registration application stage; the second category is cross-sector, where the company is laying out diabetes medications through its holding subsidiary, with its liraglutide injection and degludec insulin injection both having submitted applications for listing The rise and fall of ZHIFEI-BIOL conveys a harsh rule to the entire market: in any situation lacking autonomous pricing power, core technology iteration, and a deep product lineup, a high market value built on a mere contract will be vulnerable. When the foundation of a business model is entirely anchored in uncontrollable external technology patents and market access windows, no matter how high the valuation given by capital, it ultimately amounts to paying for a future without barriers.

Reporter: Su Ran Editor: Chen Tongtong Proofreader: Tang Qi