Hybio peptide API sales lift profit fivefold as its expansion placement lapses

Shenzhen Hybio Pharmaceutical expects its profit for the first nine months of 2026 to rise more than fivefold, and it credits one business above all: peptide active ingredient sales. The Hybio peptide API surge came in the same filing week as a setback. A share placement of up to RMB 968 million, meant partly to expand peptide lines, expired on October 12 without being completed.

What Hybio told the exchange on October 12

Hybio, listed on Shenzhen's ChiNext board under code 300199, published its nine month forecast on the evening of October 12, 2026. It expects revenue of RMB 1.23 billion to 1.25 billion, up 80.06% to 82.98% on a year earlier, and net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 430 million to 450 million, up 502.65% to 530.68%. Profit excluding one off items is forecast at RMB 420 million to 440 million. The figures are unaudited. The company said the jump came mainly from continued growth in volume at its active ingredient business, which lifted both sales and margins. The forecast covers the whole group, which also sells finished peptide drugs, runs contract research and manufacturing for other companies and works on small nucleic acid drugs, so the ingredient effect is mixed in with other lines.

The half year accounts show how lopsided the business has become. In the first six months of 2026, Hybio's revenue was RMB 688 million, of which active ingredients brought in RMB 546 million, more than triple the year before and 79.37% of the total, according to Time Finance in a report carried by the 21st Century Business Herald. That makes the Hybio peptide API unit the company's largest source of income by a wide margin, ahead of finished peptide drugs and contract work. Using the half year figures, the same report estimated third quarter revenue at roughly RMB 540 million to 560 million. That is a journalist's calculation from the two filings, not a number the company reported for the quarter.

Orders that sit behind the volume

The source of the volume is GLP 1 demand. In January 2026, Hybio won a GLP 1 active ingredient order worth RMB 180 million, and in May it disclosed a peptide ingredient sales framework agreement worth at least RMB 327 million, the report said. The buyers were not named in the coverage. Hybio has also licensed out semaglutide rights abroad, granting Brazil's Vitamedic Health exclusive commercial rights in January and selling Turkish rights to liraglutide and semaglutide to MCG Pharma in April. At home, it partnered in May 2024 with Sunshine Mandi, part of the 3SBio group, on semaglutide for weight loss in mainland China, and later signed a contract manufacturing and supply agreement for that product.

That makes the Hybio peptide API unit the company's largest source of income by a wide margin, ahead of finished peptide drugs and contract work.

Regulatory filings for finished products are still pending. China's drug evaluation centre accepted the semaglutide marketing application in July 2026, and in August the national regulator accepted Hybio's application for what the report described as the first generic tirzepatide filed in China. Neither has been approved. Semaglutide copies in China face a longer wait than in India or Canada, as our semaglutide patent expiry map sets out, which helps explain why Chinese makers have leaned on ingredient sales and foreign licensing first. A crowd of domestic rivals has been lining up semaglutide copies for the same market, so the window for pricing power may be short.

The expansion money that did not arrive

The capacity question is where the filing week turns less positive. In September 2025, Hybio set out a plan to sell shares to selected investors and raise up to RMB 968 million. The money was earmarked for expanding a peptide drug production line, scaling up peptide fragment output, semaglutide development and working capital. On the evening of October 12, 2026, the company announced that the placement had expired. No replacement financing was described in the coverage. The planned line and fragment projects were not formally cancelled either, but the dedicated funding source for them has gone, and the company has not said how or when it will pay for the extra capacity.

The balance sheet explains why that matters. At the end of June 2026, Hybio's debt to asset ratio stood at 75.65%, with cash of RMB 151 million against short term borrowings of RMB 810 million and RMB 156 million of long term debt due within a year, the report said. Accumulated losses from 2018 to 2024 exceeded RMB 2.8 billion, and undistributed profit was still negative RMB 1.577 billion at mid year. In August, the company disclosed that planned guarantees for 2026 would exceed its latest audited net assets, and the founding Zeng brothers and their spouses pledged up to RMB 1.5 billion in free financing guarantees. The full Time Finance account of the filings sets out these figures in detail.

What it means for peptide ingredient supply

Hybio, whose semaglutide active ingredient completed registration with China's regulator in January 2026 according to the company, is one of the Chinese firms that sell such ingredient to drug makers at home and abroad. Its numbers show how fast GLP 1 demand has turned a loss making peptide firm into an ingredient supplier with rising volume. Within about a year, the Hybio peptide API line went from a minor product group to the core of the business, carried by large GLP 1 orders from customers the company does not name. For drug makers that buy semaglutide or liraglutide ingredient from China, that means one more established supplier with registered product, at a time when generic launches abroad are pulling on ingredient volume.

The filing week also shows the limits of growth funded from a stretched balance sheet. Selling more ingredient from existing lines is one thing, while adding new synthesis and purification capacity takes capital that the lapsed placement was supposed to provide. Buyers of Chinese GLP 1 ingredient have other reasons for caution too, since US inspectors recently shut out two Chinese plants that made compounding ingredients, a case that did not involve Hybio. For Hybio itself, the question is whether it can add lines without the placement money, and whether customers will sign longer contracts that would help fund them.

Conclusion

The Hybio peptide API business now drives almost four fifths of sales and a forecast fivefold profit rise for the first nine months of 2026. The RMB 968 million placement meant to pay for wider peptide lines lapsed on October 12, and the company carries heavy debt. New funding, named buyers and approval of its own semaglutide and tirzepatide will decide whether its capacity grows.