Three setbacks and a return to Hong Kong stocks: the capital dilemma and survival challenge of Aike Baifa

Ask AI · Will Quyisuo Weio’s approval be imminent—can it turn around the company’s capital crunch?

After two failed attempts to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and one failed switch to the STAR Market, the biopharmaceutical company Aikubai Fa has once again launched an IPO attempt on the HKEX main board, initiating its fourth round of listing applications. On March 16, Aikubai Fa officially updated its Hong Kong stock IPO prospectus. With CITIC Securities and JPMorgan jointly serving as sponsors and co-lead underwriters, this relentless capital sprint is, behind the scenes, driven by the company’s tight cash-flow pressure and urgent need for funding.

With scrutiny on the HKEX’s 18A segment tightening, the capital market’s investment posture toward unprofitable biotech companies is becoming increasingly rational. Can Aikubai Fa’s third attempt to list on the HKEX IPO break the deadlock of repeated failures and successfully land in the capital market?

Bumpy capital road

Aikubai Fa was established in 2013, focusing on respiratory system and pediatric disease areas. It is devoted to the research and breakthroughs of innovative therapies, and its founder and CEO, Dr. Wu Zheng, has more than 20 years of experience in drug R&D, serving as the company’s key R&D helmsman.

As of now, Aikubai Fa has built an R&D pipeline comprising six candidate drugs. Its core products include Quyisuo Weio, a drug for respiratory syncytial virus (“RSV”), and AK3280, an idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (“IPF”) drug that is in the Phase II post–concept verification (“PoC”) clinical trial stage. In addition, there are multiple other in-development candidates such as AK0610, AK0901, AK0705, and AK0406, which are being advanced in parallel.

Aikubai Fa’s six candidate drugs. Photo/Prospectus screenshot

The prospectus shows that Quyisuo Weio is the world’s most advanced and most promising first-in-class RSV treatment candidate, and may also be the world’s first RSV-specific antiviral drug to achieve positive results in a pivotal Phase III clinical trial.

However, Aikubai Fa has never achieved any commercialization launch of any product. With the fastest progress among them, Quyisuo Weio is currently still in the National Medical Products Administration’s new drug application (NDA) review stage, and has not yet been approved for listing.

After undergoing multiple rounds of early-stage financing, Aikubai Fa embarked on the IPO fund-raising path, only to encounter consecutive setbacks. In five years, the company made three attempts to list on the HKEX and once switched to the STAR Market; ultimately, all ended with the company either withdrawing its applications proactively or having its prospectus become invalid.

Revisiting the timeline of its listing attempts, the earliest was July 2021, when Aikubai Fa submitted its prospectus in preparation to list on the HKEX, but it ultimately proactively terminated the listing, ending its first attempt in a quiet and hasty manner. In April 2023, Aikubai Fa switched to the A-share market, launched a STAR Market listing attempt, and planned to raise RMB 1.997 billion. But after seven months of review and three rounds of inquiry-and-response, it withdrew its issuance and listing application again.

After that, Aikubai Fa returned to the HKEX. In September 2025, the company submitted its application, but the six-month validity period expired and became invalid. Only recently did it update its prospectus again.

By then, Aikubai Fa has completed the bumpy capital journey of “two failed HKEX listings plus one STAR Market withdrawal.”

Declining revenue, expanding losses

Aikubai Fa’s repeated failures to win approval for its IPO are due not only to external factors such as tighter regulation, but also to internal operating pressure and delays in commercialization.

As an innovative drug company established in 2013, it has six candidate drug pipelines, yet over a span of 13 years it has never managed to achieve commercialization of any product. Its main business revenue has remained at zero for years, and it relies entirely on other income to keep operating.

The latest prospectus shows that in the two fiscal years from 2024 to 2025, Aikubai Fa’s revenue continued to decline. Other income and gains fell from RMB 26.305 million to RMB 7.574 million, a year-on-year drop of as much as 71.2%. On the loss side, losses kept widening: net losses were RMB 197.4 million in 2024 and increased to RMB 227.8 million in 2025. Over the two years, cumulative losses exceeded RMB 425 million.

Xinjingbao Shell Finance reporter Duan Wenping, charting by hand

More troublesome than the losses is cash flow. Aikubai Fa’s net cash outflows from operating activities have been substantial for two consecutive years. The net amount was RMB -188.7 million in 2024 and RMB -151.9 million in 2025. As of the end of 2025, cash and cash equivalents were only RMB 39.00 million.

Aikubai Fa explained that because it generated large R&D expenses related to the development of candidate drugs, the net cash used in operating activities recorded a loss during the year. In December 2025, the company received NDA approval from the NMPA for AK0901, while Quyisuo Weio is undergoing NDA review in China, and is expected to receive its NDA approval in 2026. With an increase in sales of these drugs in the future, the company’s net cash outflow from operating activities will improve.

Of course, thanks to the HKEX 18A policy, which allows unprofitable and revenue-less biotech companies to list, Aikubai Fa-type companies can have an opportunity to attempt an IPO. But the policy dividend cannot mask the company’s own shortcomings in operations.

How likely is success in the third attempt to list on the HKEX?

For Aikubai Fa, in this third attempt to launch an HKEX IPO, to persuade regulators and win over investors, it still faces tests including regulatory review, capital recognition, and product competition. The prospects for listing are full of uncertainty.

From the regulators’ perspective, they are also sending signals of tightening, imposing higher requirements on the quality of listing application materials and on the compliance behavior of sponsors.

In the “Requirements for Supplementary Materials for Filing Records of Overseas Issuance and Listing” published by the CSRC on October 31, 2025, it requires Aikubai Fa to supplement explanations on the compliance of the equity incentive schemes that have been implemented, as well as the reasons why an overseas issuance and listing was not completed after the previous approvals were completed.

From the standpoint of capital market recognition, the current rate of trading below issue price in the HKEX’s 18A segment is persistently high. In December of last year, the biotech company Huase Biotech listed on the HKEX, and its share price cooled off and fell on its first day. Also seeing a trading-above? (below issue price) on the first day included Mingbi Hospital, Impression Dahongpao, Nanhua Futures, and others.

Meanwhile, looking at the future market prospects of the core product Quyisuo Weio: as the world’s first therapy at the new drug application stage specifically targeting respiratory syncytial virus infection, after it is listed it may achieve scale effects in a short period. However, the accelerated deployment of similar competing products will continue to squeeze its market share and profit potential.

The situation faced by Quyisuo Weio is intensifying competition. The commercialization of AK3280 is, meanwhile, still a long way off. Reliance on a single pipeline carries extremely high risk, making it difficult to build a differentiated capital story. In this IPO, whether Aikubai Fa can tell a good capital story, whether it can reverse its downturn and successfully come ashore, will require time to answer.

Xinjingbao Shell Finance reporter Duan Wenping

Editor Yang Juanjuan

Proofread by Wang Xin