The new drug sells for over 500 million yuan, but Kelun Botech's performance is not impressive enough.

Ask AI · Why Kelun-Biotay’s Drug Sales Didn’t Meet Management’s Expectations?

Can the company sell good drugs—sell them well—is what investors are focusing on right now

By | Ling Xin

Edited by | Wang Xiao

Photo/Visual China

On March 23, 2026, Kelun-Biotay released its 2025 results, with revenue of 2.06B yuan, up 6.5% year over year; it posted a loss of 382 million yuan, widening 43.2% year over year.

The performance metric that Kelun-Biotay is most closely watched for is its drug sales revenue of about 543 million yuan. Because 2025 was its first full year after its core product, the anti-cancer drug sacituzumab govitecan (Luscon-something?)—was approved, the “selling drugs” performance in that year carries directional significance for the company’s commercialization prospects.

According to research reports from overseas institutions, at the beginning of 2025, Kelun-Biotay’s management set a sales target for this drug of 800 million to 1 billion yuan. Now, the gap of about 32% has left some investors mildly disappointed; some shareholders even raised questions about the company’s sales team capabilities directly on related forums.

However, most of the interviewed investment institutions believe that a sales figure of over 500 million yuan is acceptable. With Kelun-Biotay’s three products formally included in the national reimbursement list in 2026, the commercialization performance of the new year is expected to be promising.

No.1

How good was the first year of sales?

“Sales revenue of 530 million yuan isn’t low.” An investment institution representative said that considering Kelun-Biotay had not yet had any product included in national reimbursement during 2025, this performance is decent. They believe the main reason for the gap from expectations is that management was overly optimistic earlier.

The four drugs currently approved for commercial sale by Kelun-Biotay are all anti-cancer drugs. The core product is sacituzumab govitecan. According to the company’s 2025 interim report, its sales accounted for 97.6% of the drug sales revenue for the period.

Whether this drug sells well plays a decisive role in Kelun-Biotay’s sales performance.

“Before anti-cancer products are included in national reimbursement, it’s really hard to sell them. Like PD-1—its first year on the market, self-pay could reach 1 billion yuan. That’s virtually unheard of.” A pharmaceutical analyst told Caijing.

PD-1 is a category of “broad-spectrum anti-cancer drugs.” Likewise, sacituzumab govitecan is a TROP2 ADC drug targeting the trophoblastic cell surface antigen (TROP2). Because it is highly expressed in multiple tumor cell types, it is also viewed as a “broad-spectrum anti-cancer ADC” within the ADC field. Both are considered to have good commercial prospects.

Minsheng Securities said in a 2024 research report that it expects the China sales peak of sacituzumab govitecan to reach 7.35 billion yuan.

Sacituzumab govitecan has already been approved for three indications: second- and third-line treatment of triple-negative breast cancer; second- and third-line treatment of non-small cell lung cancer; and the newly added second-line treatment of HR+/HER2- breast cancer in 2026.

The first indication approved for sacituzumab govitecan is triple-negative breast cancer. This is an extremely dangerous cancer, and previously there was no particularly effective treatment.

An industry insider explained to Caijing that triple-negative breast cancer is one of the “major” breast cancer types, accounting for about 10% to 20%. China has roughly 350k new breast cancer cases per year; based on this, the number of new triple-negative breast cancer cases per year is more than 30k.

One year ago, sacituzumab govitecan was also approved for second- and third-line treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. This is one of the big cancer types that all anti-cancer drug companies pay the most attention to; the number of new patients per year may exceed 600k. There are reports that sacituzumab govitecan’s application in lung cancer has already surpassed that of triple-negative breast cancer.

Possibly for this reason, Kelun-Biotay’s management and investors had high expectations for the first-year sales performance of sacituzumab govitecan.

When Kelun-Biotay disclosed its 2025 interim results, it stated that this drug’s sales revenue was 309.8 million yuan. This number is close to 40% of the 800 million yuan sales target, which also made investors “confident” that the company could hit its sales target.

After the national reimbursement negotiations for 2025 were completed, many investment institutions lowered their performance expectations for Kelun-Biotay. “After the reimbursement is agreed, the price difference in the fourth quarter generally isn’t counted as revenue.” The aforementioned investment institution representative told Caijing that this may be why its second-half drug sales were actually lower than its first-half sales.

No.2

After being included in national reimbursement, can it still sell well?

Kelun-Biotay has not officially disclosed the extent of price cuts for sacituzumab govitecan when it entered national reimbursement.

According to reports from official media, the patient’s out-of-pocket payment per dose dropped from nearly 10,000 yuan to a little over 1,000 yuan. Based on the negotiated list price before the drug entered national reimbursement, the price cut is estimated to be around 50%, which is close to the rumored reduction.

The competitor of sacituzumab govitecan, gefitinib?—no; it is sacituzumab govitecan competitor: “goter? gol?—” (戈沙妥珠单抗) did not enter national reimbursement but instead entered the commercial insurance innovative drug catalog. Gesatutuzumab?—no; it is “gossatuzumab”? (戈沙妥珠单抗) is the world’s first TROP2 ADC drug, approved for上市 in China in June 2022. According to its negotiated list price in 2025, its price per dose is more than 8,000 yuan, making it a pure self-pay drug.

Therefore, at least in 2026, sacituzumab govitecan will hold the national reimbursement market for TROP2 ADCs exclusively.

After going through an entire year of commercialization in 2025, Kelun-Biotay’s business now covers 30 provinces, more than 300 prefecture-level cities, and more than 1,200 hospitals. The company stated in its 2025 performance report that including sacituzumab govitecan, its three drugs were listed for procurement in 31 provinces, “ensuring the products can be rolled out quickly in each province’s tenders and procurement.”

Sacituzumab govitecan has also been included in minibus?—no; “惠民保” (a people’s benefit insurance program) in multiple places. Generally speaking, once included in惠民保, the portion of a drug’s cost that is not reimbursed by national reimbursement can also be reimbursed by the惠民保 portion, further reducing patients’ personal out-of-pocket expenses.

Based on the information revealed in Kelun-Biotay’s performance communication meeting, management appears quite confident about the sales performance after products enter national reimbursement in 2026. The aforementioned pharmaceutical analyst said, “Its target is to be ‘double’ compared with 2025—that is, roughly 1 billion yuan in sales.”

Kelun-Biotay’s commercialization team will be expanded to about 800 people in 2026, around 200 more than the current headcount. Its Chief Marketing Officer, Ding Nanchao, joined the company in November 2024. Previously, he was in charge of new drug marketing at Kelun Pharmaceutical. Ding Nanchao was born in 1986; when he was promoted to Vice President of Kelun Pharmaceutical, he was only 36 years old, which is why he has drawn attention.

Caijing wrote to Kelun-Biotay to learn more about the company’s sales capability building, its commercial strategy after entering national reimbursement, and other issues. As of the time of publication, it had not received a reply.

No.3

The year expectations come true

Before 2024, almost all of Kelun-Biotay’s revenue came from out-licensing permissions and cooperation agreements. Even in 2025, of its revenue of 350k yuan, the “main portion” still came from that, with drug sales revenue accounting for only 23.37%.

During the BD (business development) boom in 2025, Kelun-Biotay’s market value at one point exceeded 100 billion Hong Kong dollars; its current market value is 98.5 billion Hong Kong dollars.

However, “pure BD is difficult to build a large company. Even if the drugs sell big overseas, the licensed companies can only get ‘the small portion.’” The aforementioned pharmaceutical analyst said.

Kelun-Biotay has reached a series of overseas licensing transactions (BD) with multinational pharmaceutical companies including Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) and other partners for multiple ADC drugs. As of the announcement date of Kelun-Biotay’s performance report, it had already laid out 17 global Phase 3 clinical studies. These include the drug as a monotherapy or in combination with pembrolizumab (commonly known as “Keytruda/K drug”).

According to information from multiple parties, through its collaboration with MSD, Kelun-Biotay can receive a first payment of 17 million US dollars for sacituzumab govitecan, milestone payments of no more than 30k US dollars, and sales royalties.

An industry insider believes that MSD’s development of sacituzumab govitecan is mainly focused around its own K drug. Therefore, how sacituzumab govitecan will be sold overseas and to what extent it can reach depends on MSD’s product layout and overall strategy at that time. The drug has a batch of global multi-center clinical trials scheduled to produce data around 2027.

In the past two years, the market outlook for sacituzumab govitecan has first been validated through its sales performance in China.

“Whether you can sell the BIC-best drugs (the best-in-class like counterparts) well—selling them well is the real focus.” In an analysis article after Kelun-Biotay’s earnings were released, a pharmaceutical investment analyst wrote.

Since 2022, everyone has been expecting Kelun-Biotay to chart the vast ‘starry sea’ of China’s ADC landscape. Now, it’s time for it to start realizing its own trillion-yuan market value step by step.