Please come to Hengrui veteran and Hou Sheng Pharmaceutical to aim for 20 billion in revenue.

Ask AI · How Can Zhou Yunsu’s Experience at Hengrui Help Boost Innovent Biopharmaceuticals’ Innovative Transformation?

Interface News reporter | Li Ke wen

Interface News editor | Xie Xin

On March 25, Innovent Biopharmaceuticals announced the appointment of Zhou Yunsu as CEO. On the same day, Interface News reporters met Zhou Yunsu at Innovent Biopharmaceuticals’ 2025 performance briefing, where he attended the event as CEO.

At the performance briefing, Zhou Yunsu said Innovent’s 2026 operating target is to break 10 billion yuan in revenue, up 30% year over year; and to break 1.6 billion yuan in net profit, up 30% year over year. The core growth sources supporting this target include the S A I B I X I N (Sixty?) series, Kewei Ke, Kexaila, Enlituo, Enzeshu, and external licensing revenue.

Zhou Yunsu also said that by 2030, Innovent’s target is to exceed 20 billion yuan in revenue, with adjusted net profit exceeding 3 billion yuan, and R&D investment of more than 4 billion yuan.

Image source: Interface News obtained

On the same day, Innovent Biopharmaceuticals told Interface News that Zhou Yunsu has extensive experience leading pharmaceutical companies in China. His achievements during his tenure at Hengrui Medicine reflect his capabilities and experience—especially in driving Hengrui’s transformation toward innovative drugs. The board believes that his appointment will significantly strengthen the company’s business development across multiple areas, particularly in innovative drug R&D and commercialization.

Interface News also learned from the performance briefing that Innovent views external licensing within a more long-term business framework. The goal is to build it into a series-based, normalized growth source, and it hopes to continue pushing new external licensing deals to land in 2026. In the future, it will value transaction quality even more—specifically whether, after licensing a project out, it can continue to participate in overseas clinical development in depth.

Interface News previously reported that “a veteran at Hengrui Medicine,” Zhou Yunsu, joined Innovent Biopharmaceuticals. In January 2020, he took over as chairman from Sun Piaoyang, the founder of Hengrui Medicine. At that time, Hengrui was in the middle of an innovation-driven transformation. But only a year and a half later, in July 2021, due to health reasons, he stepped down as the company’s chairman, general manager, and from the corresponding positions on the company’s specialized committees of the board. After leaving Hengrui Medicine, he briefly worked at Simcere Biopharma.

In 2025, Innovent Biopharmaceuticals reached a milestone period of兑现 in its innovative drug transformation. In 2025, Innovent achieved revenue of 7.731 billion yuan, up 16.5% year over year. It achieved net profit of 1.344 billion yuan, up 86.2% year over year.

Innovent’s commercialized innovative drugs already number 10, and their combined contribution to revenue accounts for more than 80%. In 2025, revenue from Innovent’s innovative drugs was 6.304 billion yuan, up 27.9% year over year.

Interface News learned at the performance briefing that Innovent also planned its already commercialized products internally, dividing them into two categories: “steady growth” and “rapid volume increase,” and provided corresponding peak sales expectations.

Endu, Aidesin, Enweida, Saibixin (injection), and Senoxin are categorized under “steady growth,” with combined peak sales of about 7 billion yuan. Kexaila, Enlituo, Keweike, Saibixin (tablets), and Enzeshu are categorized under “rapid volume increase,” with combined peak sales of about 8.5 billion yuan.

Neuroscience remains the most important performance pillar for Innovent Biopharmaceuticals. In 2025, revenue in the neuroscience area was 2.753 billion yuan, accounting for 35.6% of total revenue, up 26.6% year over year. The core product supporting this segment is still the Saibixin series. However, Innovent has not disclosed the specific contribution share of the Saibixin series within neuroscience revenue.

Saibixin is used to treat acute ischemic stroke. It was approved for marketing in China in July 2020, included in the National Reimbursement Drug List in December 2020, and completed its renewal in November 2024. In December 2024, Saibixin sublingual tablets were approved for marketing in China, for improving neurological symptoms, activities of daily living capability, and functional disorders caused by acute ischemic stroke.

The next future growth driver for this segment lies with Keweike. Keweike is a dual orexin receptor antagonist. In the past, insomnia treatment drugs often faced concerns such as addiction potential, hangover sensation, or residual effects the next day. Keweike helps people fall asleep and maintain sleep by regulating the arousal system, and it does not follow the traditional sedative-hypnotic drug pathway.

On June 17, 2025, Keweike was approved for marketing in China for treating adult patients with insomnia characterized by difficulty falling asleep or difficulty maintaining sleep, and it was not included under the administration of psychotropic drugs. Based on this, although Keweike is a prescription drug, it has stronger potential as a consumer-oriented product.

Interface News learned at the performance briefing that Innovent’s plan for Keweike is not limited to the hospital market. Instead, it hopes to make it a consumer-attributed drug that can cover the hospital side, the retail side, and online channels at the same time.

Autoimmune disease is currently Innovent’s second-largest source of performance contribution. In 2025, revenue in the autoimmune segment was 1.892 billion yuan, accounting for 24.5% of total revenue. But its growth has already hit a bottleneck, with only a marginal increase of 4.5% year over year.

Revenue in this segment still comes from the “older drug” Aidesin. Aidesin is used to treat active rheumatoid arthritis. It is the world’s first approved and China’s only approved a l a m o r d e drug, and also the only China-developed small-molecule disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug approved in roughly the past decade.

But the autoimmune segment is also about to be backfilled by new drugs. In July 2025, Innovent’s IL-4Rα monoclonal antibody, Lideqibai injection, was accepted by the National Medical Products Administration for a new drug marketing application, planned for treating adult and adolescent atopic dermatitis. Innovent acquired Greater China rights to this product in 2023 by paying a 150 million yuan upfront payment and up to 875 million yuan in milestone payments.

From the market landscape, it will be hard for this product to “sell explosively” afterward. The IL-4Rα target already has mature competitive products in the Chinese market. Dupilumab has already covered patients with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis for 6 months and above, and has also been approved for maintenance treatment of asthma in patients aged 12 and above and adults; Spesizumab has also been approved for adults with moderate-to-severe atopic dermatitis and has expanded into type 2 inflammatory indications such as chronic rhinosinusitis with nasal polyps and seasonal allergic rhinitis.

Dupilumab and Spesizumab have advantages in coverage by time, age groups, and expanded indications. The advantage of Lideqibai mainly lies in potential dosing frequency. For Innovent, how far the drug can go next depends on key factors: pricing, progress in reimbursement access, and its own ability to execute commercialization.

Oncology is Innovent Biopharmaceuticals’ third-largest revenue segment. In 2025, revenue in oncology was 1.987 billion yuan, accounting for 25.7% of total revenue, up 53% year over year.

Performance support in this segment is no longer limited to a single older product. In addition to Endu, Enzeshu was approved for marketing in June 2025 and entered the National Reimbursement Drug List in its first year after launch. Enlituo was approved in 2024 and was included in the National Reimbursement Drug List in November 2024. Kexaila was conditionally approved in 2022 and was included in the National Reimbursement Drug List in 2024.

But these products, which the market expects to ramp up quickly, are unlikely to reach very high sales ceilings. They are all entering clearly defined niche indications and are essentially “pinpoint positioning” products.

Taking Enzeshu as an example, its current ceiling looks more like a heavyweight product in the gynecological oncology field. Enzeshu was approved in China in June 2025 for platinum-resistant ovarian cancer. It entered the National Reimbursement Drug List in December 2025. Judging by the patient base, China has about 61,000 new ovarian cancer cases per year, meaning the potential patient population is sizable.

In addition, Enzeshu’s current indications are limited only to “recurrent ovarian cancer, fallopian tube cancer, or primary peritoneal cancer that is after platinum resistance and has received no more than one systemic therapy.” This also means it has high value per individual patient and a clear clinical payment logic, but the market ceiling is clearly limited.

Innovent is also advancing an Ib/III phase clinical study for Enzeshu in third-line refractory metastatic colorectal cancer. Once it moves from the gynecologic oncology specialist drug market into a larger solid tumor market, the possibility of reopening the ceiling may arise again.

The future growth space of the oncology segment mainly depends on two things: whether new products are launched, and whether commercialized products can obtain approvals for new indications.