Key Takeaways:
The company's combined losses over the past two years were nearly four times its revenues, as R&D and admin costs outpaced income
The company's valuation after its last funding round in January, implying a price-to-sales ratio of 147 times, could be hard to reach in current conditions
Screening for early signs of cancer has long been regarded as a potentially large and lucrative business. But companies in the sector face high barriers to entry, heavy costs and long development cycles before they can turn that promise into hard cash.
The rewards for success could be substantial, the global market for molecular testing for cancer has been projected to reach 405 billion yuan ($59 billion) by 2033. But for now, some Chinese companies are having a hard time in the equity markets as they struggle to close the gap between ambition and achievement.
Against this backdrop, a company specializing in detecting some of the most lethal forms of cancer is making a second attempt to list on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, filing a revised application on April 7.
Although its net losses widened by more than a fifth last year, Wuhan Ammunition Life-tech Co. Ltd. resubmitted its paperwork just days after its initial IPO filing lapsed, moving swiftly as the Hong Kong stock market faced a downward correction. CCB International and BOCOM International were named as joint IPO sponsors.
Founded in 2015, the company focuses on methylation technologies to detect cancer biomarkers in tissue or blood samples. It has brought five products to the market, including two core tests to detect cancers of the liver and urethra.
The first of those, IHepcomf, is the world's first such test using a real-time quantitative polymerase chain reaction, the company said. ...
