Visualizing China market entrance… China toxin approval expected in mid this year
[Infostock Daily= Reporter Song Jeong-hoon] Hugel released its first quarter 2020 financial results on May 13th, stating that the company has recorded a revenue of KRW41.3bn, operating profit of KRW12.3bn and net profit of KRW6.7bn.
Revenue and operating profit declined 16% YoY and 25.1% YoY, respectively giving the company an operating profit margin of 29.8%. While sales of botulinum toxin ‘Botulax’ and HA filler ‘The Chaeum’ somewhat declined in the domestic market impacted by the COVID-19 spread, sales remained solid in overseas markets including Asia, Latin America and etc.
Overseas revenue of Botulax increased 44.1% YoY. In particular, Latin America revenue jumped 80.3% YoY and Asia revenue showed solid growth of up 50.1% YoY, as well. HA filler ‘Dermalax / Revolax’ performance in the overseas market was also better than expected. Overall revenue of ‘Dermalax / Revolax’ grew 4.4% YoY as the 20.3% YoY increase in its overseas revenue offset the domestic revenue decline. The biggest revenue improvement came from Asia region which was up 27% YoY. EU also continued to deliver steady revenue growth of 16.5% YoY.
Hugel has been actively engaging in untact marketing to counter the economic slowdown stemming from the worldwide spread of COVID-19. As part of that, it hosted its first ever online academic symposium, ‘iH.E.L.F’, in April. It ran a total of seven sessions from April 7~28th, recording about 1,800 cumulative number of viewers, gaining positive feedbacks. Hugel plans to hold ‘iH.E.L.F’ twice a month until the end of this year. Moreover, the company also plans to carry out e-mail sales marketing for medical staff in the medical aesthetics field across the country, as well as untact marketing such as forums and non-face-to-face sales.
Hugel’s global major market expansion is also expected to accelerate. The earliest entry expected is into China; technical review of Letybo approval has been completed last month and the company expects to obtain final approval by mid this year. For entrance to EU, the company plans to submit BLA within 1H20 to target for final approval in 2021. For the US, Hugel named James Hartman, a medical aesthetics expert, as President of its US subsidiary ‘Hugel America’ to prepare for the US market penetration. Hugel is aiming to submit BLA for the US market entry end this year and obtain final approval by end of next year.
According to Jihoon Sohn, CEO of Hugel, “As global major market entrance including China will start to materialize during the remaining period of the year, we will focus our efforts on successfully penetrate and win in the global market.”
Reorter Song Jeong-hoon boxr@infostock.co.kr
