Selling 5000 boxes wildly! Still being snapped up at 5800 yuan per unit, does Kangzhe Pharmaceuticals have a hundred-billion-level blockbuster?

Ask AI · Why Can Rucotinib Cream Quickly Fill the Treatment Gap for Vitiligo?

Produced by | Zhongfang.com

Reviewed by | Li Xiaoyan

On March 17, Kangzhe Pharmaceutical released its 2025 full-year financial report, delivering a stable recovery with optimized structure: total revenue of 8.212 billion yuan, up 9.9% year-over-year; due to a one-time tax payment, net profit on the books declined by 10.5%, but excluding this factor, net profit grew by 3.6% YoY. After two consecutive years of double-digit net profit declines, the company has fully shaken off the shadow of centralized procurement, with innovative and exclusive drugs becoming the core engines. Coupled with the hot sales of blockbuster products like Rucotinib Cream, Kangzhe Pharmaceutical is experiencing both performance and valuation recovery. Management explicitly stated, “2025 marks the start of a long-term new growth cycle.”

Kangzhe Pharmaceutical started as a medical distribution company. In the 1990s, it secured its leading position in China’s CSO industry with two exclusive products, Dailixin and Yousifu, establishing traditional strengths in cardiovascular, cerebrovascular, digestive, and autoimmune fields. Starting in 2022, Dailixin, Yousifu, and Boyiding were successively included in centralized procurement, severely impacting performance. In 2024, revenue from these three original drugs fell to 2.691 billion yuan, a nearly 30% decline YoY, becoming the main drag on growth.

By 2025, the negative impact of centralized procurement was largely cleared, and traditional businesses began to stabilize and recover. The financial report shows that revenue from the cardiovascular and digestive/autoimmune segments increased by 2.3% and 3.3% respectively, contributing over 76% of total revenue, providing a stable cash flow and profit base. After two years of adjustment, the impact of centralized procurement has been fully released, the decline of old products has been contained, and overall business has returned to a healthy growth track.

More significantly, the product structure has undergone a complete shift: in 2025, sales revenue of innovative and exclusive drugs increased by 44.1% YoY, accounting for 59.8% of total revenue, becoming the primary growth engine for the first time. This marks a decisive success in Kangzhe’s strategic transformation from “relying on old agency products” to “driven by innovation and exclusive products,” with notable improvements in growth quality.

While overall business stabilized, Kangzhe’s dermatology health segment emerged rapidly as the fastest-growing and most promising business unit. In 2025, revenue from the dermatology health line reached 1.07 billion yuan, a 73.2% surge YoY, surpassing the ophthalmology line and becoming the company’s second growth driver.

The main products in the dermatology health line are from Demu Pharmaceuticals, which is currently planning a spin-off listing. It holds three core products: Anshuxi, Xiliatuo, and Yilutu. The product lineup is well-structured. Yilutu (Tirreki (tildrakizumab) injection) is the main growth driver. As a monoclonal antibody targeting IL-23’s p19 subunit, used for moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, it was included in the medical insurance in January 2024. Its key advantage is long-acting dosing: mainstream biologics for psoriasis are administered every four weeks, but Yilutu can be given every three months, greatly improving patient compliance. Market forecasts suggest peak sales could reach 2 billion yuan.

Anshuxi, a patented polidocanol sclerosing agent injection, was acquired by Kangzhe in 2021 and has achieved a compound annual growth rate of over 50% from 2022 to 2024. Xiliatuo, a classic external-use product covered by insurance, previously limited by supply bottlenecks, saw a significant acceleration in sales after Demu increased production capacity in early 2025. With these three products working together and supported by R&D investment, the dermatology health line has formed a healthy pattern of “mature products steady growth and innovative products high-explosion.”

The substantial increase in R&D investment further consolidates the innovation foundation. In 2025, Kangzhe’s R&D expenses reached 585 million yuan, a 77.3% increase YoY. Even after excluding the impact of one-time tax payments, net profit still grew positively, demonstrating the company’s confidence and capability in transforming into an innovative pharmaceutical enterprise.

The biggest highlight for Kangzhe in 2026 is undoubtedly the commercialization of Rucotinib Cream. In January, the product was approved by the National Medical Products Administration, becoming China’s first topical JAK inhibitor for vitiligo, filling a clinical treatment gap. On March 12, it was officially launched on JD Pharmacy, priced at 5,800 yuan per tube, and was quickly snapped up by patients. Within 12 hours, sales exceeded 5,000 units; by March 17, sales on JD exceeded 8,000 units, with market demand far exceeding expectations.

Approximately 10.3 million Chinese vitiligo patients previously lacked approved topical treatments, creating urgent clinical demand. As early as August 2023, Rucotinib Cream received special import approval for urgent clinical needs and was sold in the Haikou Lecheng Pilot Zone, attracting over 7,000 patients and exceeding 10,000 units sold. It ranked among the top in both patient volume and sales among pilot products, validating its clinical value and market acceptance.

Beyond vitiligo, the application for Rucotinib Cream to treat atopic dermatitis was accepted in February this year. With over 70 million atopic dermatitis patients in China, topical drugs are more easily accepted by children and adolescents than injections, further expanding market potential. Demu’s CEO Huang Anjun predicts that sales of this product could reach 500 million to 1 billion yuan in 2026, with peak sales possibly hitting 6 to 10 billion yuan, making it Kangzhe’s first billion-level blockbuster.

The popularity of Rucotinib Cream not only directly boosts performance but also accelerates Demu’s spin-off process. As an innovative platform focused on skin health, Demu’s independent listing will likely command a higher valuation premium, further unlocking the value of the dermatology business and creating a positive cycle of “product sales—capital appreciation—R&D feedback.”

The performance rebound in 2025 is just the beginning. Kangzhe’s innovation pipeline is entering a period of intensive harvest, with multiple products expected to launch in 2026, continuously driving growth. In March, Dextrotyrosine (Dexamethasone) tablets for CKD anemia were approved, with CITIC Securities predicting peak sales exceeding 1 billion yuan; collaborations with Zhixiang Jintai on tetanus and rabies passive immunization products are also expected to come to market within the year.

Management stated that the company’s strategic equity investments in partners will enter a “results year” in 2026, with investment returns and business synergies gradually emerging. Meanwhile, the company continues to strengthen commercialization, with offline coverage across 30 provincial-level regions, thousands of medical institutions, and 1,300 pharmacies, plus deep online cooperation with JD Pharmacy and other platforms. The multi-channel sales network provides a solid foundation for new product launches.

Objectively, Kangzhe still faces short-term challenges: the impact of one-time tax payments on profit, high R&D expenses suppressing short-term profitability, increased marketing costs for new products, and potential risks from intensified competition in the dermatology field, pricing pressures from medical negotiations, and uncertainties in Demu’s spin-off process.

But in the long run, the company’s growth logic is now clear: clearing the procurement haze + stabilizing traditional businesses + rapid growth of innovative drugs + landing of billion-yuan blockbuster products + continuous pipeline fulfillment, with five major drivers resonating to propel Kangzhe from a traditional CSO to an innovative pharmaceutical company. The 2025 performance inflection point has appeared, and with the launch of products like Rucotinib Cream and Dextrotyrosine in 2026, growth is expected to accelerate further.

From an industry perspective, under the background of pharmaceutical innovation upgrading and rising consumer medical demand, Kangzhe’s differentiated dermatology layout, strong commercialization capabilities, and continuous pipeline investment position it at a new starting point for long-term growth. For this resilient and successfully transformed pharmaceutical company, the turnaround has achieved a key victory, and future growth remains promising.