The business of experimental mice and experimental monkeys is hot: the unit price exceeds 10,000 yuan and the profit margin is higher than that of Maotai

Is the profit margin higher than selling Maotai?

Not long ago, Yaokang Bio, which focuses on experimental animal mouse models, landed in the capital market, and the hugely profitable business of experimental mice was also pushed to the forefront.The unit price of some of its strains of mice is as high as 10,000 yuan, and the gross profit rate is as high as 95.65%, which exceeds the 91% gross profit rate of Maotai.

Like mice, the price of experimental monkeys is also high. In recent years, the price of experimental monkeys has also ushered in a skyrocket. Some species even exceed 100,000 a single, and “one monkey is hard to find” has become the norm.

Under the background of the continuous increase of new drug research and development, the pharmaceutical-related industry chain is developing rapidly. As the upstream of supporting services, the laboratory animal industry is becoming more and more popular, and it has begun to receive more attention from capital.

The business of “selling small animals” is on fire

Mice are the second mammals to complete whole-genome sequencing after humans. Due to the high homology of their genomes to humans, they have become the most widely used experimental animals.

Among Yaokang Bio’s products, the spotted mouse has the highest price, with an average price of over 10,000 yuan, and its gross profit margin is over 90%, which is called “mouse grass”.

The reason why “Spotted Rat” has a high price and a high gross profit margin is that some of its products are pioneered by the company, and there is a certain market scarcity and a pricing advantage.

Yaokang Bio said,As a high value-added product, the Spotted Mouse is mainly invested in the creation and development in the early stage of research and development, and the relevant expenses are included in the research and development expenses.

Coincidentally. At the beginning of this year, according to the announcement published on the website of the Ministry of Finance, the announcement of winning the bid for the cynomolgus monkey project of the China National Institute for Food and Drug Control was released, and finally Kunming Yaling Biotech successfully won the bid. The supply quantity was 30, and the transaction amount was 3.66 million yuan. The unit price of the goods is 122,000 yuan.

Cynomolgus monkeys, also known as long-tailed monkeys, are often used as animal models of human diseases because their biological characteristics are very similar to those of humans.

At the beginning of 2020, the purchase price of cynomolgus monkeys was 30,000 yuan.In just two years, the unit price of experimental monkeys has doubled, but despite this, there will still be a situation where “one monkey is hard to find”.

“By the end of this year, if the number of experimental monkeys rises to 200,000, I wouldn’t be surprised.” In a report by Caijiandao, Sun Qiang, director of the non-human primate research platform of the Institute of Neuroscience, Chinese Academy of Sciences, expressed his concern for Experimental Monkey’s view of price gains.

Under the influence of the new crown epidemic, the demand for experimental monkeys has rapidly increased, and the demand for experimental monkeys in various countries has skyrocketed.

However, the time cost of raising experimental monkeys is very high, and it takes several years. The limited production capacity of experimental monkeys is one of the reasons why the market is in short supply. In addition, relevant suppliers also need to have qualifications such as wild animal domestication and breeding licenses and experimental animal production licenses. , for various reasons, the price of experimental monkeys remains high.

The seemingly ordinary mice and monkeys have big business behind them, which has also caused capital to chase.

Capital shot to compete for the market

Last month, Yaokang Bio was listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, and the sale of commercial mouse models is its main business.

The prospectus shows that in 2018-2021, Yaokang Bio achieved operating income of 53.2906 million yuan, 193 million yuan, 262 million yuan and 394 million yuan.

Just by selling mice, Yaokang Bio has earned over 900 million in recent years.

Another company that sells guinea pigs, Nanmo Biology, successfully landed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board at the end of last year, and the company’s main business gross profit margin also reached more than 60%.

As of press time, the two companies whose main business is the sale of laboratory mice—Nanmo Bio and JiCui Yaokang—have market capitalizations of more than 4.1 billion and 9.3 billion yuan respectively.

In the primary market, the laboratory animal industry also attracts attention.

In April this year, Zhuokai Bio announced the completion of tens of millions of yuan in B+ round financing, which was exclusively invested by Legend Capital. Previously, the company had completed the B round led by Lotus Pond Fund, followed by Daoyuan Capital, Heyu Capital, Dynamic Balance and other institutions. round of financing.

Zhuokai Bio is committed to the development of Drosophila model animals and related drugs for mental diseases. The company has an experimental area of ​​1,200 square meters, including a Drosophila olfactory learning and memory evaluation platform, and an SPF-grade transgenic mouse experimental platform.

In the same month, Lingfu Bio also completed a pre-A round of financing of over 200 million yuan, led by China Life Equity and jointly led by Legend Capital, which was mainly used for the layout of experimental animal resource bases and laboratories. At present, Lingfu Biology has deployed the Yangtze River Delta experimental beagle and marmoset resource base, Hainan experimental cynomolgus monkey and miniature pig animal resource base.

According to statistics from Frost & Sullivan, the global animal model market is expected to reach US$22.6 billion in 2024. Under the background of the hot industry, the relevant listed companies even directly “buy, buy, buy”.

On April 28 this year, Zhaoyan New Drug conducted strategic mergers and acquisitions in the field of monkey model animals, acquiring 100% of the shares of two experimental animal model companies, Yingmao Biology and Weimei Biology, at a price of 1.805 billion yuan.

The two monkey farms will bring 20,000 monkeys to Zhaoyan New Drug. Simply calculating the purchase price, the price of one monkey is as high as 90,000 yuan.But this is already considered a “wholesale price” compared to the hundreds of thousands of experimental monkeys on the market.

Compared with Zhaoyan New Drug, WuXi AppTec’s layout is earlier. As early as 2020, Suzhou Kanglu Bio, a wholly-owned subsidiary of WuXi AppTec, completed the acquisition of Guangdong Chunsheng Monkey Farm, with a breeding scale of more than 20,000 cynomolgus monkeys.

In 2021, Pharmaron announced to acquire a 50.01% controlling stake in Zhaoqing Chuangyao, a subsidiary of New Japan Science, in the form of equity purchase and capital increase. Zhaoqing Chuangyao’s main business scope is the domestication and breeding of national second-class wild animals, macaques and cynomolgus monkeys.

Laboratory animals, as “substitutes” for humans, are an important tool for preclinical drug research, and are gaining more opportunities with the rapid growth of the drug R&D industry. It can be said that mice and monkeys and innovative drugs achieve each other, and it is also expected that star capital and listed companies are eyeing the field of animal models.

How long will the vent last?

In recent years, the research and development of innovative drugs has become a worldwide investment hotspot. In line with this, the number of clinical trials of innovative drugs at various stages has shown a rapid growth trend.

However, since the second half of 2021, many biopharmaceutical companies have broken their IPOs. Despite being sought after by all kinds of capital, Nanmo Bio broke on the first day of listing, with a closing drop of 18.02% on the day; Yaokang Bio broke immediately after its listing, with a drop of 17.89% on the day.

This also reflects the concerns of the capital market. From 2018 to 2021, Yaokang Bio’s net profit was -6.0227 million yuan, 34.7442 million yuan, 76.4335 million yuan and 125 million yuan. Among them, government subsidies and company repayments account for almost half of it, which makes people wonder if Yaokang Bio is really making money from selling mice?

Another big domestic business of mice, Biositu, is known as the “three giants of domestic model animals” together with Nanmo Biology and Yaokang Biology.However, it is still in losses. In 2020 and 2021, the company will lose 477 million yuan and 546 million yuan respectively, and the loss in two years will exceed 1 billion yuan.

Although the animal model industry is hot, capital still values ​​its commercialization capabilities. Whether the animal model market will continue to be popular in the capital market in the future is a question worth considering.

Rats and monkeys are mostly used as animal models for the development of new crown vaccines. In the development of various vaccines, animal models are indispensable. Affected by multiple factors of the epidemic, experimental monkeys have now become a “hot commodity” in the international market. But in the future, as the “epidemic dividend” subsides, how much room is there for the imagination of the animal model market?

It is worth mentioning that compared with developed countries, the scale advantage of my country’s animal model market has not yet been realized, and the industrialization of the industry is not yet mature.

Taking experimental monkeys as an example, the foundation of my country’s biomedical industry is relatively weak. According to incomplete statistics, the number of experimental monkeys that my country has cultivated by itself has reached 240,000, but the actual number that can be used for experiments is only 30,000, and most of them are not enough. To the requirements of slaughtering, the experimental monkey industry needs to have higher standardization and industrialization requirements.

In addition, both cynomolgus monkeys and rhesus monkeys belong to the second-level national protected animals, and their transactions are subject to legal restrictions and require relevant approvals, which also creates a certain threshold for breeding.

In the short term, with the rise of innovative drugs and the drive of the epidemic, the market scale of upstream experimental animal models has been directly driven, and related companies are facing good development opportunities.

In the long run, whether it is the experimental animal mouse model industry or the experimental monkey model industry, the market segment is relatively small. Most animal model companies in China carry scientific research genes and have a narrow sales area, and most of them are still burning. At the stage of research and development, and it is easily affected by the development of the innovative drug development market, although the animal model industry is hot, there are still certain limitations in future development.

Hashtag: experimental laboratory mice