Benefiting from strong demand, domestic vaccines that have broken through the "encirclement" of imported vaccines have performed well. Wantai Biotech and Watson Biotech staged a "tale of two cities" and fought hand-to-hand in the bivalent vaccine market. The two companies have fought openly and secretly in local procurement, and as the price war of domestic two-valent HPV vaccines becomes more and more glue, how long the two-price dividend can last under the fourth price and nine prices has also become a lingering question.

Pharmaceutical revenue soared

On the evening of March 3, Wantai Biotech released its 20 annual report, and its revenue and net profit both soared. During the reporting period, the company achieved an operating income of 2022.111 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 85.94%; The net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 51.47 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 36.134%. Prior to this, Watson Biotech released the 28 annual performance forecast, and the net profit increased by 2022%-48% over the same period last year. On the 78th of this month, the company will disclose its final annual report.

Domestic demand for HPV vaccines continues to grow, and Wantai Biotech's net profit in 2022 will nearly double. For the performance growth, Wantai Biotech said that the main factors are that the company's bivalent cervical cancer vaccine continues to maintain production and sales boom, and revenue and profit continue to maintain rapid growth; In addition, due to the strong market demand for testing reagents, the revenue and profit of the company's related testing reagents and raw materials have also achieved certain growth.

At present, there are three main domestic companies involved in HPV vaccines, including Zhifei Biotechnology, Wantai Biotechnology and Watson Biotechnology, of which Zhifei Biotechnology is the agent of Merck's four-valent and nine-valent HPV vaccine products, and Wantai Biotechnology is the first domestic enterprise independently developed and has marketed bivalent HPV vaccine; In March 2022, Watson Biotech was approved to market its self-developed bivalent HPV vaccine, becoming the second domestic company that can produce and sell bivalent HPV vaccine.

Watson Biotech and Wantai Biotech have both been listed on the A-share market, with a total market value of 612.2 billion yuan and 1101.<> billion yuan respectively.

The bivalent HPV vaccine "Cinconin" is the main source of revenue for Wantai Biologics' vaccine segment. Xinkenin obtained the "Drug Registration Approval" on December 2019, 12, and was officially launched in May 30. As a result, Wantai Biotech became the first domestic and third HPV vaccine manufacturer in the world, breaking the monopoly of Merck and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in the HPV vaccine market.

Compared with GSK's bivalent HPV vaccine, Cinchonin has a clear price advantage. The initial market price of Cinchonin is 329 yuan / piece, 9-14 years old women only need to receive 2 shots, 15-45 years old women need to receive 3 shots, based on this calculation, the cost of Cinchonin 9-14 years old vaccinated is 658 yuan, 15-45 years old vaccinated 987 yuan, and GSK bivalent HPV vaccine full vaccination cost 1740 yuan.

In September last year, after Watson Biotech successfully won the HPV vaccine procurement project worth 9 million yuan from the Fujian Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the price war of bivalent HPV vaccine escalated. The procurement information shows that the purchase volume of the project is 1,42 units, and the winning bid price of Watson Biotech this time is about 58 yuan per unit.

Watson Biotech said on the interactive platform on March 3 that in terms of bivalent HPV vaccine, the company has completed the access of major provinces/municipalities directly under the central government in China.

A reporter from Beijing Business Daily interviewed Wantai Biotech and Watson Biotech in terms of the proportion of vaccine research and development and product production, but as of press time, the other party did not reply.

Who spends the "nine prices"

The production and sales of Wantai bivalent HPV vaccine are remarkable. During the reporting period, the company's bivalent HPV vaccine reached a designed production capacity of 3000 million units per year, and sales exceeded 2500 million. In March 2022, Wantai Biotech won the bid for projects benefiting the people such as the procurement of human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for school-age girls in Guangdong Province, and promoted the free vaccination of cervical cancer vaccine at some ages. In the international market, after the company's bivalent HPV vaccine passed the WHO PQ certification, it successively obtained marketing authorization in Morocco, Nepal, Thailand and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in 3. The international competitiveness of the company's products has been further enhanced.

The other side of going to sea is the relative abundance of the domestic two-price market. The reporter of Beijing Business Daily consulted with Hepingli Health Service Center, Andingmen Community Health Service Health Care Department, and Beitaipingzhuang Community Health Service Center and learned that the bivalent HPV vaccine is in stock and is domestic, and the reporter logged in to the vaccine appointment platform provided by the community hospital to inquire and learned, showing that the remaining vaccines can be booked in the options are all domestic bivalent HPV vaccines.

Bivalent HPV vaccine is currently the lowest price cervical cancer vaccine, which can only prevent HPV16 and 18 infection, and is not as popular as quadrivalent and nine-valent HPV vaccines in the market. Although domestic bivalent HPV vaccines have broken the long-term monopoly of foreign countries and formed a "siege" on imported bivalent HPV vaccines in terms of production capacity and price advantages, it is still difficult to shake the status of "nine prices".

Domestic demand for HPV vaccines continues to grow, the market scale continues to expand, and competition is intensifying. The "domestic" nine-price has also become a place where soldiers must fight, and who will become the first stock of the "domestic nine-price" has attracted much attention.

In the third quarterly report last year, Watson Biotech mentioned that the company's nine-valent HPV vaccine has entered the phase III clinical research stage in September of that year, and is currently carrying out various work on subject enrollment.

Wantai Biotech said that the phase III clinical trial and industrialization of its nine-valent HPV vaccine is progressing smoothly, and the head-to-head clinical trial with Merck's nine-valent HPV vaccine (trade name: Jiadaxiu 9) has also completed clinical trials and specimen testing.

At the same time, on the investor interactive platform, Wantai Biotech said that clinical trials of the company's HPV vaccine for male groups are also being planned.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Tao Feng Li Xiang