A Chief Commercial Officer earning 5.13 million yuan annually and ranking third on the company's compensation list has departed, marking a personnel change that coincides with Asymchem's performance recovery.

**01 Asymchem's Chief Commercial Officer Departs**

Recently, Asymchem Laboratories (Tianjin) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Asymchem") announced that XINHUI HU (hereinafter referred to as "Hu Xinhui") has applied to resign from his executive position due to personal reasons.

Hu Xinhui joined Asymchem in June 2022, serving as Chief Commercial Officer and Chief Technology Officer, responsible for the group's technology and business development. On August 7 this year, Asymchem announced personnel changes - Hu Xinhui would no longer serve as Chief Technology Officer, with Chen Chengyi taking over the position, retaining only the Chief Commercial Officer role. Less than a month later, Asymchem announced Hu Xinhui's departure.

Hu Xinhui, 53 years old and a U.S. citizen, earned 5.1372 million yuan in 2024 among Asymchem's 20 executives, ranking behind only the Chairman's 5.5293 million yuan and the Executive Director and Co-CEO's 5.3493 million yuan.

Before joining the company: Hu Xinhui served as Chief Technology Officer at Everest Medicines, overseeing the company's CMC R&D, technical operations, supply chain management, and production facility construction.

2013-2018: Hu Xinhui worked at Roche Shanghai R&D Center as Senior Director of Pharmaceutical Sciences, responsible for pharmaceutical research and new technology development in Roche's antiviral field.

2005-2013: Hu Xinhui worked at renowned multinational pharmaceutical companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Merck & Co., and Johnson & Johnson, engaging in innovative drug development for many years.

Asymchem, as a leading global CDMO (Contract Development and Manufacturing Organization) in China, primarily focuses on small molecule CDMO business. In recent years, it has also expanded into emerging business segments including chemical macromolecules, formulations, biological macromolecule CDMO, clinical CRO, technology transfer, and synthetic biotechnology.

Asymchem's revenue has been declining in recent years, from over 10 billion yuan in 2022 to 5.805 billion yuan in 2024, nearly halving. Asymchem stated that 2024 revenue decreased 25.82% year-over-year, mainly due to large order deliveries in the same period of 2023, with revenue growing 7.40% year-over-year after adjustment.

However, Asymchem's performance showed significant recovery in Q4 2024, with quarterly revenue increasing 15.41% year-over-year and 15.35% quarter-over-quarter.

The growth momentum continued into 2025: first-half revenue reached 3.188 billion yuan, up 18.20% year-over-year; net profit attributable to shareholders reached 617 million yuan, up 23.71% year-over-year.

An Asymchem employee indicated that this improvement was particularly noticeable in the second half, with increased workload.

**02 Domestic CDMO Recovery**

Other CDMO companies similarly show signs of recovery. Leading company WuXi AppTec's market capitalization has exceeded 70 billion Hong Kong dollars, with first-half 2025 net profit growing 52.7% year-over-year. Jiuzhou Pharmaceutical's CDMO business proportion significantly increased to nearly 80%, ending last year's decline, with overall revenue growing 3.9% year-over-year.

CDMO industry prosperity is often directly linked to innovative drug market performance. From the domestic market perspective, China had 704 innovative drugs under research in 2024, ranking first globally. In the first half of 2025, China approved 43 innovative drugs, up 59% year-over-year, reaching a historic high for the same period.

China's innovative drug market prosperity has synchronously increased downstream demand for the CDMO industry. Frost & Sullivan data predicts that China's pharmaceutical R&D outsourcing ratio will increase from 42.6% in 2022 to 52.2% in 2026. China's pharmaceutical CDMO market size is expected to reach 208.4 billion yuan in 2028.

From the global market perspective, multinational pharmaceutical companies have consistently shown strong cooperation intentions with Chinese CDMO companies. Frost & Sullivan indicates that Chinese CDMO R&D personnel average compensation is approximately 50% of Europe and America, but work efficiency and quality outcomes reach international first-class levels.

Under strong competitive advantages, Chinese CDMO companies' international performance is also growing. For example, in the first half of 2025, WuXi PharmaTech Group's overseas revenue accounted for 82% of total revenue, an 8% increase from 2024. Asymchem's overseas revenue proportion reached 77.63%, up 23.27% year-over-year.

Particularly in May this year, the National Medical Products Administration approved Johnson & Johnson's niraparib injection cross-border segmented production pilot, marking a major breakthrough in biological product segmented production regulation. In the future, this may attract more overseas original drug production transfers to China, meaning Chinese CDMO companies may undertake more business demand.

However, the warmth of industry recovery has not yet reached the individual level - several CDMO industry practitioners indicated that personal salary increases this year have not been significant, with some even experiencing layoffs based on cost reduction and efficiency improvement.