Pharma Neutral 5

Haohai Biological Reports Full-Year Income Retreat Amid VBP Pressures

Shanghai Haohai Biological Technology Co., Ltd. has reported a decline in full-year income for the 2025 fiscal year, driven by margin compression in its core ophthalmology and orthopedic segments. The retreat highlights the ongoing challenges of China's volume-based procurement (VBP) policies and intensifying competition in the medical aesthetics market.

· 3 min read · By Biotech Intelligence Brief

Beat this week

Last 7 days · Pharma

7 stories
5.9 avg impact
43% positive
0% negative
vs prior 7 days +5 +5 stories vs prior 7 days

Impact 5.9/10 (+0.4 vs prior). Counts are stories in our record, not a market forecast.

Open the change report

Coverage balance Positive coverage leads. Positive coverage exceeds negative coverage by 43 percentage points.

  • 43% positive
  • 57% neutral

This story sits in Pharma — the counts compare this beat's last 7 days with the previous 7 in our verified record, not a market forecast.

Figures are computed live from our source-verified story record (as of ) The volume change compares this window with the prior 7 days in the same record. — see our methodology for how impact and sentiment are derived.

Share

Biotech briefing

Key takeaways

5 impact
Neutralsentiment
3min read
  1. Shanghai Haohai Biological Technology Co., Ltd.
  2. has reported a decline in full-year income for the 2025 fiscal year, driven by margin compression in its core ophthalmology and orthopedic segments.
  3. The retreat highlights the ongoing challenges of China's volume-based procurement (VBP) policies and intensifying competition in the medical aesthetics market.

In this briefing

Mentioned

Key Intelligence

Key Facts

  1. 1Shanghai Haohai Biological reported a decline in net income for the full year 2025, ending a period of steady growth.
  2. 2The company's ophthalmology segment faced significant margin compression due to provincial and national VBP rounds for IOLs.
  3. 3R&D expenses increased as the company accelerated development of its 4th-gen hyaluronic acid fillers and myopia control products.
  4. 4Medical aesthetics remains the primary growth engine, though marketing costs have risen due to intense domestic competition.
  5. 5The company maintains a dual listing on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange (6826.HK) and the Shanghai Stock Exchange (688366.SH).
Market Outlook on Earnings

Analysis

Shanghai Haohai Biological Technology Co., Ltd. (Haohai Biological), a prominent player in China’s medical biomaterials sector, has reported a retreat in its full-year income for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2025. The announcement, made on March 21, 2026, signals a challenging period for the company as it navigates a complex regulatory environment and shifting market dynamics in its primary business segments: ophthalmology, medical aesthetics, orthopedics, and wound care. This retreat in profitability follows a period of aggressive expansion and product diversification, suggesting that the company's bottom line is feeling the weight of systemic price pressures in the Chinese healthcare market.

The primary headwind facing Haohai Biological remains the continued expansion of Volume-Based Procurement (VBP) in China. This centralized bidding process, designed to reduce healthcare costs for the state, has significantly impacted the pricing of intraocular lenses (IOLs) and orthopedic sodium hyaluronate injections—two of Haohai’s legacy revenue drivers. While VBP allows for higher sales volumes by securing hospital contracts, the steep price cuts required to win these bids often lead to thinner gross margins. For Haohai, which has historically relied on its dominant position in the domestic IOL market, the transition to a high-volume, low-margin model has proven difficult to offset through efficiency gains alone.

Shanghai Haohai Biological Technology Co., Ltd.

In the medical aesthetics division, which includes hyaluronic acid (HA) fillers and botulinum toxin products, Haohai faces a different set of challenges. While the aesthetics market in China continues to grow, it has become increasingly saturated with both domestic competitors like Imeik Technology and Bloomage Biotechnology, as well as international giants. To maintain its market share, Haohai has been forced to increase its marketing and promotional spending, which has further pressured operating margins. Additionally, the company is in the midst of a multi-year R&D cycle, investing heavily in fourth-generation organic cross-linked HA fillers and orthokeratology (OK) lenses for myopia control. While these products represent the future of the company’s growth, the current R&D burn is a significant factor in the reported income retreat.

What to Watch

Market analysts are closely watching how Haohai manages its capital allocation in the coming year. The company has recently pursued several strategic acquisitions to bolster its technology pipeline, but the integration of these assets and the time required for clinical validation and regulatory approval mean that these investments are not yet contributing significantly to net income. Furthermore, the broader macroeconomic environment in China has led to more cautious consumer spending on elective medical procedures, such as high-end aesthetic treatments, which may have contributed to a slower-than-expected growth rate in the company’s non-VBP-regulated segments.

Looking forward, Haohai Biological’s recovery will likely depend on its ability to successfully commercialize its high-margin, innovative pipeline products that are less susceptible to VBP price caps. Investors will be looking for signs of stabilization in the ophthalmology segment and a return to double-digit growth in the aesthetics division. The company’s ability to optimize its manufacturing costs and streamline its sales force in response to the VBP era will be critical in determining whether this income retreat is a temporary setback or a sign of a more prolonged period of stagnation in the domestic biomaterials market.

Timeline

Timeline

  1. Aesthetics Expansion

  2. VBP Participation

  3. Annual Results Announcement

Cite This Page

"Haohai Biological Reports Full-Year Income Retreat Amid VBP Pressures." Biotech Intelligence Brief, March 21, 2026. https://getbiobrief.com/story/haohai-biological-full-year-earnings-retreat-2026

Related Stories

Pharma

Rabies Vaccine Use Up 33%, HRIG Up 76% in 2026

Biotech and pharma stakeholders see CDC data showing a 17% rise in rabies exposure inquiries translating into 33% higher vaccine utilization and 76% higher HRIG utilization. The trend signals demand pressure for post-exposure prophylaxis biologics.

Pharma

Anthropic's 9-Month Misuse Audit Flags Bioweapons Research Threats

Anthropic's third AI misuse report reveals blocked attempts to use Claude for biological weapons research. Newer models now restrict dual-use biological research, a development biotech and pharma teams need to track as they use AI for protein design and genomic analysis.

Pharma

Anthropic's 3rd threat report details blocked AI bioweapons research

Anthropic's latest misuse report reveals attempts to use its frontier AI for dual-use biological research that could have supported weapons, prompting stronger safeguards in its newest models. The disclosure raises biosecurity and compliance questions for biotech and pharma teams using AI in discovery and genomics.

Pharma

Protagonist's $300M Buyback: Rare Cash Return After 2 FDA Wins

Protagonist's board authorized a $300 million repurchase, backed by $849.5 million in cash and royalty streams from two FDA-approved drugs. For biotech observers, the move marks a shift from cash burn to capital return as partnered products generate milestone and royalty income.

How we covered this story

Every story in our biotech coverage is assembled from multiple primary sources, cross-referenced for factual consistency, and scored along three independent dimensions: sentiment, operational impact, and source-cluster confidence. Single-source rumors and unverifiable claims do not pass our editorial gate. When a story shows "Verified by N sources" with N≥2, the development is independently corroborated; when N=1, we mark it explicitly so readers can weigh the signal accordingly.

Impact scoring uses a 1-10 scale weighted toward regulatory, financial, and operational consequence rather than coverage volume. A topic that runs in every outlet but moves no real decisions ranks lower than a niche regulatory filing that reshapes how operators in the biotech space have to behave. Read our full methodology for the scoring rubric, our glossary for term definitions, and our trends index for the longitudinal view across the beat.

Sources are only linked to a story once they clear our classification pipeline at a minimum 35 percent relevance threshold. According to that methodology, reviewed July 2026, this follows multi-source corroboration standards recommended by journalism research bodies such as the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

See something wrong in this story — a wrong fact, a broken source link, a misattributed entity? Report a data issue.

Signal on this pageWhat it tells you
Verified by N sourcesIndependent corroboration count. N≥2 is our confidence floor; N=1 is marked explicitly.
Impact score (1-10)Regulatory + financial + operational weight. 8+ signals an experienced-operator action item.
SentimentFive-tier classification trained on labeled biotech-specific corpora.
TimelineWhere applicable, the related-events sequence that contextualizes today's development.