This year, amid a bull market for innovative drugs in Hong Kong stocks, the Hang Seng Healthcare Index surged up to 102.6% at its peak before paring gains to 70.57% after a significant correction since October. In contrast, HUTCHMED (00013), which boasts three commercialized innovative drugs and a first-in-class antibody-targeted conjugate, appears to have been "forgotten by the market." The stock's year-to-date peak gain was just 36.36%, and it has shown a tendency to "follow declines but not rallies," with its YTD return narrowing further to a mere 5.19% amid the recent sector-wide pullback.
Is speculative trading outweighing long-term holdings? HUTCHMED's secondary market performance this year reflects shifting investor sentiment. After breaking below the lower Bollinger Band in early April due to external market volatility, the stock mostly fluctuated between the middle and upper bands, aligning with the broader innovative drug rally. However, the interim report marked a turning point.
On August 7, pre-market in the U.S., HUTCHMED released its 2025 interim results, reporting revenue of $278 million, down 9.2% YoY. While net profit surged 16.6x to $455 million due to gains from divesting non-core joint ventures, the domestic sales of its three key drugs—fruquintinib, surufatinib, and savolitinib—plunged 30–50%, dragging proprietary product revenue down 22% YoY. This weakness in its innovative drug business dampened long-term valuation prospects, evident in heightened intraday volatility and籌碼 exchange.
On August 8, the stock plummeted 15.99% on record-high volume of 70.29 million shares, with turnover spiking from 0.69% to 8.06%, signaling panic selling. Over the next month, speculative trading dominated, with three sessions (August 27, September 5, and 15) seeing price swings exceeding 4% and volume topping 15 million shares.籌碼 overlap remained below 60%, indicating active reshuffling.
A brief recovery in mid-September was cut short as the Hang Seng Healthcare Index peaked on September 8 and reversed. HUTCHMED’s "follow-the-drop" trend deepened, diverging from sector movements. Institutional sentiment shifted: over 20 days, Bank of China and two Stock Connect channels were top buyers (net buying 3.44 million, 2.47 million, and 1.75 million shares), while HSBC, Citigroup, and Morgan Stanley led selling (net offloading 8.57 million, 4.49 million, and 232,900 shares). Notably, Stock Connect holds 28.51% of HUTCHMED’s shares, dwarfing HSBC’s 10.85%, suggesting a "buy-the-dip" strategy amid its depressed P/E (TTM) of 5.64x—far below the sector’s 28.32x and 17% under its three-month average.
**Pipeline Gap: Risk or Opportunity?** After divesting its cash-cow traditional Chinese medicine business early this year, HUTCHMED’s growth hinges on innovative drugs. Yet, H1 saw steep domestic sales declines: Elunate (fruquintinib, -29% to $43 million) faced colorectal cancer competition; Sulanda (surufatinib, -50% to $12.7 million) lost ground to somatostatin analogs; and Orpathys (savolitinib, -41% to $15.2 million) suffered from rival醫保 inclusions.
Overseas, fruquintinib shone with $163 million (+25% YoY) under partner Takeda, buoying oncology revenue (69.45% of total) to a modest 4% decline. Savolitinib’s approval in China for MET-amplified EGFR-mutant NSCLC (covering 30% of resistant cases) triggered a $11 million milestone payment from AstraZeneca.
However, concerns linger over fruquintinib’s overseas growth, particularly after its commercialization in Japan and Europe in late 2024. With H2 lacking catalysts pending year-end updates, attention has shifted to HMPL-A251, an antibody-targeted PI3K/PIKK inhibitor from HUTCHMED’s ATTC platform. Preclinical data presented at AACR-NCI-EORTC showed potent anti-tumor activity across 130 cell lines, including HER2-positive and DS-8201-resistant models. Though clinical trials are slated only by year-end, the R&D update has stabilized the stock, with thinning volume hinting at a wait-and-see stance for a turnaround.