Trifolium Bio Still Has No Seedlings to Sell Despite Resolving "Debt Repayment" Crisis

Why has AI · Sleaford Biotech not launched other products after the COVID-19 vaccine?

Reporter | Huang Hua

Editor | Xie Xin

On March 22, Sleaford Biotech announced that its subsidiary Sleaford Hong Kong had reached a settlement agreement with the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI), fully terminating the arbitration dispute caused by the previous pre-purchase agreement.

On March 23, Sleaford Biotech told Jiemian News that the settlement agreement is a cautious business solution; through the settlement, it will provide greater predictability for the group’s future development and reduce potential uncertainties. The agreement does not constitute, nor should it be understood as, an acknowledgment of liability by Sleaford Hong Kong or GAVI for any claims in the arbitration.

Sleaford Biotech also informed Jiemian News that all claims GAVI made against Sleaford Hong Kong in the arbitration will be withdrawn and released after the payment of the agreed initial installment. Therefore, the settlement marks the full end of the related arbitration matter, and the company will continue to focus on advancing its core business.

On March 23, Sleaford Biotech’s stock rose over 9% intraday. By the close, the stock price was HKD 2.21 per share, up 4.25%, with a latest market value of HKD 2.9 billion.

According to the latest settlement agreement, Sleaford Hong Kong is required to pay three types of amounts, including a one-time cash payment of USD 7 million, future semi-annual payments of USD 1.5 million or a percentage of the group’s cash balance in the low single digits, and payments based on a mid-to-high single-digit percentage of future cash income.

The announcement shows that the total future payments by Sleaford Biotech will not exceed several tens of millions of dollars at the mid-range level. Based on a valuation of USD 50 million, the total amount Sleaford Biotech needs to pay is approximately RMB 350 million. Compared to the previously demanded refund of USD 224 million, Sleaford Biotech can reduce its repayment by about RMB 1.2 billion.

However, despite this, Sleaford Biotech’s current situation is not optimistic. In terms of performance, by the first half of 2025, Sleaford Biotech’s losses still exceed one billion yuan. Jiemian News previously reported that from its listing in November 2021 to the end of 2024, Sleaford Biotech’s cumulative revenue was about RMB 78 million, with cumulative losses exceeding RMB 9 billion.

A greater risk is that, aside from the COVID-19 vaccine, Sleaford Biotech has no other commercialized products. In June 2025, Sleaford Biotech announced that due to significant market changes, it would terminate its four-valent influenza vaccine distribution partnership with Guoguang Biotech and will not distribute this vaccine in mainland China in the future. The influenza vaccine line was previously the company’s sole source of cash flow.

Terminating the partnership means that, for a period of time, Sleaford Biotech may have almost no commercial revenue. Currently, the financing environment for the vaccine industry is likely worse than just before the COVID-19 pandemic. As of the end of June 2025, the company’s cash and cash equivalents totaled RMB 380 million.

From Sleaford Biotech’s recent situation, it is evident that seeking a settlement with GAVI is a better way to reduce risks than continuing to stalemate. However, phased payments to partners will still increase operational pressure to some extent.

Behind Sleaford Biotech is a changing Chinese vaccine industry—products like influenza vaccines are caught in price wars during public procurement, while self-paid categories like HPV and shingles vaccines face growth bottlenecks. Coupled with macro-level changes in the birth rate, both children’s and adult vaccines are under pressure.

Among peers, in the first three quarters of 2025, ZhiFei Bio, Wantai Bio, and Watson Bio all reported losses, with Watson Bio’s net profit dropping over 60% year-on-year, and Hualan Vaccine’s net profit decreasing over 50%.

Sleaford Biotech was once a star vaccine company, founded in June 2007. Its management team includes industry notable figures, such as founder Liang Peng, and directors Wang Xiaodong and Wu Xiaobin. The company’s development after 2019 also echoes the shared experience of many COVID-19 vaccine developers.

The product involved in the dispute between Sleaford Biotech and GAVI is the COVID-19 vaccine, specifically the recombinant subunit protein vaccine (CHO cell), SCB-2019 (CpG 1018/adjuvanted).

This dispute between a vaccine company and an international health organization has lasted five years. The supply agreement dates back to June 2021, when SCB-2019 (CpG 1018/adjuvanted) was still in clinical trials, and Sleaford Biotech had not yet gone public.

The initial terms of the agreement stipulated that once Sleaford’s COVID-19 candidate vaccine was approved for inclusion in the WHO Emergency Use Listing (EUL), the company would supply 64 million doses in 2021, with GAVI having the right to purchase an additional 350 million doses in 2022.

In other words, this procurement agreement was contingent on WHO emergency use authorization and initially specified the supply volume and schedule. At that time, the global COVID-19 pandemic made this order seem like a potentially transformative deal for the company. However, the industry landscape under the pandemic has been unpredictable.

It was not until December 2022 that Sleaford’s COVID-19 vaccine was approved for emergency use domestically, and in the same month, it was included in the second booster dose plan. To date, it has not received WHO emergency use authorization.

In September 2022, Sleaford announced it had received an upfront payment of USD 224 million from GAVI, which was non-refundable. But in March 2025, GAVI unilaterally terminated the agreement and demanded a refund, which Sleaford refused. The current settlement agreement is based on this situation.

Currently, Sleaford Biotech is betting on its next product, a respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, and has prioritized the development of combination vaccines.

In October last year, Sleaford announced that its two RSV combination vaccine candidates (RSV+hMPV±PIV3) and the RSV monovalent vaccine had completed Phase 1 trials in elderly populations. In January this year, the company launched Phase 2 trials for the two RSV combination vaccines.

So far, no RSV vaccines have been approved in China, but several domestic and international companies are applying for approval or are in clinical trials. Sleaford Biotech is in the second tier. In the field of RSV prevention, Sanofi’s Nirsevimab is a flagship product, with sales reaching €1.686 billion in its first full year on the market.