This meeting is being recorded. An interim result announcement. Before we begin, please note the following disclaimer: Members of the media and press are not authorized to be on this call. If you are from the media or the press, please disconnect from the call now. Please note that this call is being recorded. By attending the event, you agree to all these restrictions. To avoid disruption, everyone is muted by default. During Q&A, if you have questions, please use the Raise Hand button. For those on the phone, please press star nine on your keypad to raise and lower your hand. If you're asking a question, please wait to be called, and we'll unmute your line accordingly. I'll now pass the line to your host today, Christopher Lui from Jefferies. Please go ahead. Thank you.
Thank you. Good morning, good evening to investors online. This is Christopher Lui, Healthcare Analyst here at Jefferies. It's our honor to host Hua Medicine's first half 2023 earnings call. We have with us Dr. Li Chen, Founder, CEO, and Chief Scientific Officer, and Mr. George Lin, CFO, Executive Vice President. Let me now pass the floor to Dr. Li Chen. Take charge, please.
Hi, everyone. Thank you from London, New York, and Hong Kong, and rest of the world. I'm very pleased to have you in this 2023 interim result conference. We are the Hong Kong-listed Fortune A companies, here the disclaimer. I will give you a company overview on Hua Medicine in the last six months of progress. Mainly, representing with the major progress that Hua Medicine advanced ourself from a R&D-based company into the commercial company through the collaboration with Bayer in the commercialization of HuaTangNing, the dorzagliatin, which is the global first-in-class glucokinase activator, which treat diabetes patients to repairing their glucose homeostasis.
A novel therapy launched in China only, the sales in the first half behaved very well compared with all the other oral drugs that launched over the last few years, that with very good market performance. The sales increases roughly around 300% compare the first, the second half of 2022, which we launched the drug after approval in September 30th, 2022. As a biotech, we also enjoy a very good milestone payment from our partners. This year, we have received a RMB 400 million milestone payment in the early half of this year. Our cash balance now increased from roughly RMB 500 million now to RMB 880 million.
We are recently, now after recently announced the new milestone payment, we are expecting to receive another RMB 800 million milestone payment in this year. Overall, the company is transitioning well from a innovation-driven R&D company into a commercialization company. At the same time, we've been focusing on our primary capabilities of dorzagliatin as a novel therapy, which can improve the glucose sensitivity and insulin sensitivity, and repair the glucose homeostasis. It might offer additional opportunities and benefits to the human health in addition to the type two diabetes.
We have recently demonstrated that dorzagliatin improves the GLP-1 secretion in Type 2 diabetes with obesity in the United States, and the papers was published in the Nature Communications, showing that for a short-term treatment of dorzagliatin, the glucose stimulated that GLP-1 secretion was repaired close to normal. At the same time, we have published our DREAM study, in which we showed 65% of the diabetic can achieve diabetes remission for 52 weeks. Then, recently, we have showed the result from the animal study, demonstrating or further validating that the sustained diabetes remission is come from a improvement or rescue the function of pancreatic islets in the mice. I think this is a very important and consistent.
Mechanism of action of glucokinase, in the neural, endocrine cells, which is in the beta cell and the alpha cell in the pancreas, and the K cells and L cells in the intestine. Those are the major functions for GK, serve as a glucose sensor, which improves the glucose sensitivity, which allow to improve the hepatic glucose control. In this case, the drug will reduce the insulin resistance, and that improves the glucose and insulin sensitivity altogether
Very novel drug, and obviously, the further investigation will be needed to follow up our GK rat study, in which we show that at a subminimal therapeutic dose, that is, you use a low dose, our dorzagliatin to treat a disease-generating GK rats, and it will prevent the GK rats to be routing to the diabetes condition and the impairment of cognition. Showing the balance of glucose homeostasis will eventually be able to contribute to the energy homeostasis that is highly required in the brain system. We are also conducting trials in Hong Kong and in China, looking to the opportunity to prevent diabetes, especially the IGT subjects, which have post-meal glucose abnormal, and dysfunction in the early insulin secretion.
Those are the areas where the dorzagliatin can play this role. Finally, as we have been studied before, dorzagliatin can work together with sitagliptin, DPP4, and empagliflozin and the SGLT2 class. Most recently, we have shown its benefit in combination with GLP-1. With this key function to restore the glucose homeostasis, the combination with existing therapy will further benefit the patients in diabetes, obesity, and in neuro degeneration diseases. Hua Medicine will continue in this area, especially with the new funding comes in to drive the further innovation. Many of you probably already know what dorzagliatin can do.
I think this slide basically summarizes that, dorzagliatin, is a drug that impacted on three major pathways that in the clinic to managing the diabetes. First, it repairs the early-phase insulin secretion, and this is very important to control the post-meal blood glucose. Secondly, it manages the GLP-1 secretion, which controls the dietary and energy intake through the GLP-1 receptor system. The third, which I consider very important, and many people probably miss this point, is that glucokinase is highly damaged in the liver under the disease conditions. Whether it's in the MODY or it's in the diabetes Type 1 or Type 2, the ability of converting glucose into glycogen and balance the glucose homeostasis was damaged because of the GK dysfunction.
Dorzagliatin can restore the liver GK expression, and also in clinic showing a very effective reduction of post-meal glucose. This is a probably one of a kind as now compared with the other oral antidiabetics, and including insulin, to managing the post-meal glucose. The reason we consider this is important is that the diabetes complication, the fluctuation of blood sugar in Type 2 diabetes are mainly due to this uncontrolled and then rapid increase of blood glucose and after meal. This is particularly important for the Chinese diabetic patients.
We getting to our commercial stage, and Hua Medicine has prepared and then published high-quality clinical results in Lancet, and Nature Medicine, as well as Nature Communications and Diabetes, and so on, to show that the results of this well-designed, well-executed clinical studies can be used for the commercialization, and then the discussion with our KOLs. At the same time, we have developing the model algorithms in the TIR calculation, and then we have published, together with the Chinese experts, in the clinical experts consensus, to recognize dorzagliatin as a first-in-class drug in the diabetes area, and promoting the drug in the clinical setting.
Uh, at the same time, um, the pharmaceutical, uh, experts, and mainly, uh, those, the pharmacists, um, and, uh, pharmacologists, um, they also, um, publish a, uh, consensus, um, showing the mechanism of action of this drug, and then the ability of bringing the diabetes, uh, remission into the patients that, uh, benefit, uh, from the dorzagliatin treatment. And this effort, uh, is aligned with our activity to prepare the NRDL, um, uh, application, and then down the road, the NRDL price discussion. Um, here are a few slides just showing our results and how the drug be able to improve the, uh, uh, GLP-1 secretion.
On the left side, the slide was showing that Ralph DeFronzo has done a claim study showing that the, in the diabetics, the GLP-1 secretion is significantly impaired, compared with the healthy NGT, or impaired fasting plasma glucose patients, that's the IGT. For those, I think the important message showing that in the diabetes patients and GLP-1 expression is impaired, and Hua Medicine is for the first time demonstrated that dorzagliatin can restore the glucose-stimulated GLP-1 secretion to the level on the IGT subjects. Obviously, there is a opportunity now for Hua to continue developing dorzagliatin in the area of GLP-1 secretion.
Through our recent experiment, we show the combination of GLP-1 and dorzagliatin will offer the benefit in the blood glucose management. With the recent study in the clinic, reports from the physician has also indicated that a combination of semaglutide and then dorzagliatin works really well in patients who had uncontrolled blood glucose using insulin and rapid and basal insulin therapy together with a couple of other oral therapies. That gave us a further confidence that in the future, we will continue to monitor and then also preparing the investigator, sponsor the clinical study in the real world, and to follow up the progress of the combination of dorzagliatin with GLP-1.
as I reported earlier, prevention of the GK rats, the KK-Ay mice to develop into a diabetic condition and with preventing the elevation of blood sugar, and also prevention, the reduction of the targeted proteins. In this area, I think most importantly, we identify the connection between the diabetes and the cognition impairment through the insulin receptors and the glucose transporters in the brain of this study animal. We'll continue this study and illustrate the opportunity and to developing glucokinase-related therapies in the neurodegeneration area. This is a slide basically showing that why we think dorzagliatin improves the beta cell function and lead to the diabetes remission.
Here is the animal islet, the blue one on the left side is the normal animal. The red one is the obese diabetes rat, right? With the infusion of glucose, we can see the amount of insulin secreted, and the time for the insulin secretion has been moved away from the healthy animal. On the right side, we can see with dorzagliatin treatment, we will be able to restore the insulin secretion in full capability. Here is the overlapping of the control animal versus the treated animal.
That, in this case, this is a very good demonstration that diabetes remission is closely related to the repairment of the pancreatic islet function in terms of glucose-stimulated insulin release. Obviously, the theory for glucokinase in the glucose-stimulated insulin secretion is well established by Franz Matschinsky, who received the Lasker Award in 2020, recognizing glucokinase as a glucose sensor and play a central role in glucose homeostasis. We have recently published our results in DAWN. In this publication, we further showing that for the subject diabetes patients who received the dorzagliatin treatment and achieved very good TIR control.
On the top left panel, you can see that the gray line is before treatment, and then after 20-week treatment, and then you see this blood glucose fluctuation curve start falling in the healthy range, which is defined by the Time in Range, a new measure, which has been implemented in 2019 through ADA, and then 2020 in Europe, and then 2021 in China, as a new indicator showing the effectiveness of getting the blood glucose control. Because the traditional methods of the HbA1c only measures the average blood glucose among three months. It's a three-month blood glucose average. That's not really reflecting how bad is the fluctuation of the blood glucose, and then how, how far away the patient's is in a disease condition from the healthy glucose homeostasis control.
TIR offer us a, a very good measure, and improvement of the TIR from roughly less than 60%- 80% during the treatment by dorzagliatin is a very significant improvement in the blood glucose control. We believe that this level of improvement in the glucose homeostasis will lead to additional benefits in the prevention of diabetes complication, and also improve the pharmacoeconomic value of this drug, so that benefiting us to get a good NRDL entry. Additional data showing that dorzagliatin improves the TIR is correlated with the improvement of the beta cell function indices, which include the disposition index, the early phase insulin secretion index, the HOMA2-%B, and then the HOMA2S. HOMA2S is the measure of the improvement of insulin sensitivity.
improving and which can further avoid the diabetes complications and the corresponding medical spending always 10x , according to the International Diabetes Federation, that 10x for the diabetes complication treatment compared with the diabetes treatment. We are talking about our current status and then the progress. Obviously, we have now as a commercialization company driven by R&D, we have two indications. Our dorzagliatin now can be used in the clinic. One is for the drug-naive diabetes, and then the other is to the metformin-tolerated uncontrolled Type 2 diabetes.
At the same time, due to the excellent clinical pharmacology of dorzagliatin, the DKD patients can be used, can use the dorzagliatin in the DKD patients without any dose adjustment. This is especially a good news for China, or the patients in U.S., in the DKD, especially in the stage 3, 4, or end stage of chronic disease condition. For them, there is no good drug to help them to control the blood glucose. Dorzagliatin can just do that.
Also, the combination and allow to do the combination with DPP4 sitagliptin, and then the empagliflozin, and to the patients who will need the treatment in combination, or they have already on DPP4 SGLT2, with a poor blood glucose control, and they can use the dorzagliatin in clinic as a combination therapy. We are developing our fixed-dose combinations, and then the most recent advance, showing that the fixed-dose combination with metformin has reached a good stage. The new formulary has been developed, and we are preparing to bring this new drug into the clinical study next year. We are also advanced the second-generation GKA.
For the 1st-generation GKA, we have a twice a day therapy, and then we're all developing a once a day therapy, especially focusing on its capabilities to treat diabetes with obesity. Now, I think we are planning to file the IND toward the end of this year or beginning next year. We are completing the preclinical safety studies, and the final report will be in, in the end of this this quarter. The filing preparation is ongoing. We are very excited to see that the 2nd generation of GKA has demonstrated a very good pharmacological response and pharmacokinetic properties in the larger animal, compared with the dorzagliatin.
Also, we are continuing looking to the new areas in the glucose homeostasis control for the congenital hyperinsulinism. Those are the patients was born with a genetic defect, have low blood glucose levels and which is life-threatening. We are looking for solutions to helping those patients as we're moving along in the diabetes homeostasis control. At the same time, we've been working with AscendRare, a new company recently acquired by Hua Medicine, the fructokinase diagnostic methods, that will further enhance our fructokinase inhibitor development and accelerating our management toolkits and the better control technology in the glucose homeostasis, managing the fructose impact in this homeostatic control.
mGluR is a program has been with Hua for a while. We are now looking to the glutamate homeostasis control, and then initiated a new program related to the mGluR related activities, and then we'll start to moving this program towards the clinical study next year. Finally, we have been very grateful to have our first generation being able to successfully launch it in China, and then had a good feedback from the clinicians for this drug having the ability of control post-meal glucose, improve the beta cell function, and achieve diabetes remission. Obviously, the second generation will add additional opportunities for us to move into the global international opportunities.
The rare disease area, as I just described, is not just looking into the genetic disease. Just like GCK, genetically, the homozygous GCK mutation will cause a permanent neonatal diabetes. The subject was born with diabetes and then have to take insulin as a lifelong therapy. Understanding the GCK in the Type 2 diabetes situation, and which make it more clear that the impact of the genes in those rare disease can have a larger indication in the disease setting. That is where we are now. We will continue to expand the GCK therapy in the diabetes, in the early stage, in the prevention, and then toward the late stage, in combination with the GLP-1 insulin.
In the rare disease area, we really consider those genes offers a great proof of concept and a validation of those chronic diseases, so that will come up with a more effective way to address a broad medical healthcare needs. Now, this is a slide that we basically summarize the ongoing activities at Hua Medicine with dorzagliatin as a monotherapy or in combination with metformin and other therapies. We are looking for the diabetes remission and also the prevention of diabetes complication. We are looking to this IGT fields, and globally, we're now have over 500 million IGT subjects, and those are the pre-diabetes conditions, and the dorzagliatin is positioned to prevent the value to those subjects.
Other areas, as I already mentioned, the new formulations and second generation, and the fixed-dose combinations will serve as the effective tools, will allow us to do a more personalized diabetes care. Just one update on this, is that we have recently run the non-biased machine learning program using the data come from our clinical study, and be able further to classify the diabetes patients into six category. We are planning to conducting studies among those different categories and then testing the different combination, and then based on the mechanism of action, which is connected to the underlying disease conditions of the six subgroups.
Now, forward-looking, we can see the, as China moving to a modern development, the requirement for control of diabetes is very clear. As I mentioned, dorzagliatin alone or combinations will be able to address the diabetes, and the diabetes progression, prevention of the complication, and also have the potential in the diabetes prevention. We are working with Bayer, they are bringing finerenone, which is a very effective CKD drug, chronic kidney disease drug, and is a perfect fit with dorzagliatin for the DKD and in related area. Bayer China and Hua has a joined the promotion team for finerenone and the dorzagliatin, and started in May this year, and then.
confident that this combination in the market promotion will eventually bring a broader benefit to the patients in China and then potentially in the rest of world. I mentioned that a personalized diabetes care. I think with dorzagliatin now, we have 10 classes of antidiabetic drug, where dorzagliatin address the glucose sensor function and restore the glucose sensitivity and insulin sensitivity, and add on to a current therapy will bring a more precisional treatment guided by our AI-based algorithm. We're also looking to the management of the neurodegenerative diseases, the connections of glucose-generating ATP environment, where the disease yearly is happened because of lack of good glucose metabolism in the neuron system.
We are, as we moving toward second half of the year, we are currently working with our partners to accelerating our progress and activity related to the NRDL discussion, and also working with our partners to expand our production capabilities, and that include in the manufacturing of API and also for the tablet manufacturing. Additional activities, including also the work with Bayer and to receive this RMB 800 million milestone payment, which, I think is moving along very well.
New Era of Diabetes Management** **George Lin:** Good morning, everyone. Today, we're excited to share some significant updates regarding Hua Medicine's progress and future outlook. We've been diligently working on our R&D pipelines, and I'm pleased to announce that we have a robust cash balance to support our ambitious plans. This financial stability allows us to engage in well-planned clinical studies, which are set to commence next year. Our focus remains on innovative therapies for diabetes and metabolism. We've been particularly encouraged by the progress in our combination therapies and new indications for dorzagliatin, our first-in-class oral antidiabetic therapy. These advancements, along with milestones related to manufacturing capabilities, are key drivers of our future growth and potential additional payments. For a detailed financial update, I'll now pass the line to our CFO and Executive Vice President, George Lin. George
Sure. Thanks, Dr. Chen. As Dr. Chen had mentioned, a lot of good progress in the first half. Next slide. Dr. Chen, can you move to the next slide? As you can see here, this is the cash balance as reported. As of June 30, 2023, we had RMB 881 million of cash, and that's a significant increase from our year-end balance. That cash increase of about RMB 390 million, you can see RMB 258 million came from operating activities, which was the receipt of RMB 400 million from Bayer, offset by investment in the launch, in inventory sales, et cetera. Investing activities was negligible. We did draw down from some of our loans in China as we become a commercialization company.
We've been blessed in having two different banks provide bank loans, which we've been able to draw down for working capital and inventory build-up, which is great. That's the net cash from financing activities. As everybody probably is aware, we have not issued any equity since the IPO. As you can see, there's been a significant increase from RMB 490 million-R MB 881.3 million. This does not account for the RMB 800 million that is due to be received in the fourth quarter of this year from the Bayer development milestones. Dr. Chen, next slide. You can see here the revenue, significant increase, RMB 17.6 million- RMB 70.3 million for the first half of 2023.
This is typical for our launch. We're very excited about this. You know, one thing to keep in mind is this significant increase, about 300% of sales, was achieved despite the fact that we obviously are not in the NRDL and have very limited access of hospitals that actually include our drug. Online activity actually contributed close to 50%, which again, is great that consumers themselves are directly reaching out for this. We expect to see continued growth in the second half as well. You should see a nice uptick again for second half sales. Gross profit margin is what we want to be focused on.
Obviously, the second half of 2022 was quite depressed and not normal because it was launch and there was a lot of investment, high per unit cost. We now are starting to normalize, and even this is not normalized. As we increase our scale, you'll see this gross profit margin go up even higher. We were able to see in the period an increase of 18.9% basis points, going from 43.7 gross margin rate to 62.6. We expect this to continue moving up for the full year, 2023. Second half should go up as well. There's some additional work that Dr. Chen and the CMC team are working that should definitely do that. Other income, not much to discuss here.
Government grants and interest income. We're trying to get as much interest as we can from our building up of cash, which is great. Our loss has decreased. One significant change to mention is that our selling expenses is undergoing a change and has increased dramatically. Since we've launched, we now have to account for the promotion expenses that we pay to Bayer as selling expenses. Before it was just our promotion team, now a lot of that expense has moved in to Bayer. It's not all the Bayer cost. We do also have a marketing team, but a big percentage of this, as you know, is accountable or attributable to Bayer. Next slide. R&D expenses under really good control.
Although now that our cash has built up significantly and our programs are in the right place, I would say that Dr. Chen and the clinical and scientific team are gonna flex their muscles, if you will, and stretch their legs to start moving forward, as he mentioned, on the second generation, as well as IND filing in the U.S. and potentially thinking of new pathways to get that developed faster. He mentioned rare disease, both for CHI, potentially for other indications in the U.S. as well. There'll be work on the FKI as well as mGlur.
For the most part, you can see that, it has declined because we didn't have that much activity except for these preclinical studies that we have been doing, both in China. Mostly in China, but some of the work was also done in the U.S. for the second-generation drugs as well. Next slide. The last one. Yeah, Admin expenses, again, under control, so dropped by 21% as we've, we've been able to kind of figure out how we want to run this company, with current focus on China sales of dorzagliatin and splitting resources with Bayer, who's principally committed to selling our drug. We've been able to leverage this over our increasing sales. This is pretty good.
We don't, we don't expect admin expense to increase that significantly, even though we do expect our revenues to increase pretty significantly with NRDL. If we do get into the NRDL, obviously, probably more expenses will be committed to compliance and other matters of that sort to keep up, but it won't increase lockstep for sure with revenue. This again, is a very positive. Overall operating income margin should actually remain on the down. On, on the upslope, operating expenses should be continued to contract. I think that's our, our last slide. Maybe with that, Christopher, you want to kick it off with any questions or open the floor to other people with questions?
Yes, definitely. Thank you, Dr. Chen and George, for the detailed presentation. Investors who are interested in asking questions, please click on the Raise Hand button and wait for your name to be prompted for unmuting. While we pull the questions, let me have the luxury to kick off our discussions by asking two questions, one on the second gen GKA and another one on the reimbursement. Can you talk about the second-generation GKA? What is our development strategy, especially in the U.S., given they've done very comprehensive trials with dorzagliatin in China? Will you give us some color in terms of costs, maybe partnerships as well? Second question on reimbursement. Of course, it's a game changer. Do you have an approximate timeline?
More importantly, what should we expect in terms of ASP, sales volume and net margin that you would accept, should that be being reimbursed? We note in the format in China is bringing over $1 billion being sales, which has been a mainstay in NDI and also in the EVP now. Should we expect dorzagliatin to be in that ballpark out years? That's it for me.
I'll, I'll take a shot and, then, let George finish up. I think, for the second generation, the major purpose.
... is focusing on the different type of diabetes in the States and the rest of the world. As we evaluating the diabetic conditions, and the Asian or China diabetes has a early impairment of pancreatic function, so that dorzagliatin is very effective, directly address that issue, and then get the control, remission, and so on. For the majority of Western diabetics, they have a relatively stronger pancreas, but they're obese. With the reduction of the body weight, then you will need to repair their or maintain their pancreatic function. The body weight and the fat is causing the insulin resistance, and reduce the glucokinase expression in the liver and the pancreas and so on.
That disease physiology and the requirement led us to consider and position dorzagliatin, second generation, as a once-a-day therapy, also address the diabetes kidney disease in U.S., as well as other related diabetes or glucose management disease as potentially monogenic or rare disease in nature. This position differently from what dorzagliatin being used in the clinic, obviously benefiting from what we have learned about dorzagliatin in the 18 clinical studies in China and in the United States, and this is also supported by our personalized diabetes treatment strategy.
Going to the second question, related with NRDL, I think you probably have heard that in the last six months or so, there has been a lot of discussion related to the drug pricing policy. We know there has been a pretty steep price cut on the new drugs, getting to the NRDL discussion. This has been recognized by the local and central government, and understanding that the difference between the generics and innovative drugs that plays a different role in the healthcare system, and thus the management on the price and valuation of the drug will be different. For example, dorzagliatin can lead to the diabetes remission and also improve the beta cell function, as well as improvement of the blood glucose fluctuation.
Those are the things where the existing drug cannot offer. This is also the opportunity to slow down or prevention of the diabetes complication, which justify its higher value in the socioeconomical estimation, and discussion with the regulatory agencies related to the drug price. Shanghai government has recently published announcement, which is a through a combined efforts in 6 or 8 bureau, involving drug administration, involving the price bureau, involving the health committees. Talking about that, gave the innovative drug a opportunity to enter into hospitals in Shanghai without worry about the DIP and DRGs.
Which is a very good sign for China to start to recognize the innovation value of the new therapies, and also guide the industry from doing generic drug me-too, to the first-in-class in worldwide therapy to address the unmet medical needs. I think those are the very good signs to differentiating the traditional or so-called standard of care, as well as offer the patients, especially in China, we have 140 million diabetes and roughly close to 300 million pre-diabetes. The diabetes complication cost is over RMB 10. It's really a major disease burden and health economic burden to the country.
I think we saw the opportunity to bring remission, to slow down the progression of the disease, and potentially prevent the diabetes complication will offer a unique value to the system. George, you want to add more to this?
No, you know, you know, we would love to add a lot more and give a lot more guidance, but this is a first-in-class drug that really is treating the root cause. I think what has been appreciative, just from afar and watching the team in Shanghai and Dr. Chen leading that, with Bayer in the discussion, with preparation, with, with Bayer on the NRDL discussion, is that this has a very, very big impact, right, on the Chinese healthcare community. You know, not to belittle kind of some of the other drugs that are getting into the NRDL, but, but those populations are much smaller, very life-threatening, serious disease.
You can imagine when the government agrees to allow a chronic disease drug like dorzagliatin, and also it's happening with obesity as well, what kind of huge impact that does have, right, on the future care and the receptivity to look at pharmacoeconomics. Yet the data has not yet caught up. The science actually suggests that this is a good thing, is if you see remission, well, you're probably going to save a lot of money on complications. If you see a reduction in obesity and loss of weight in obese people, then you're going to have less cardiovascular incidences. These are the type of things I think that are important. In terms of your detailed question about the ASP and what kind of margin we would expect, we're not providing that kind of guidance. This is a very sensitive time.
Just bear with us again, for at least probably 2, 2.5 months. Just like all the other folks, we will announce what the agreed, or not agreed, we have to say that as well. We can't promise that it will go in. For now, publicly, it's been, you can check this on yourself. Publicly, we've been passed through phase I or stage 1, right, the formal pass. Others. Some others have been knocked out. We're still proceeding forward. They're studying us. Very difficult to get covered under current anti-corruption environment, et cetera. Dr. Chen and Bayer and the team continue to press forward. That's probably all the guidance we can get. They obviously want it. We want it.
It is a game changer, it will increase the number of hospitals immediately, but that doesn't mean that we don't have to work. We're working really hard with Bayer to prepare ourselves to continue to push, because there's other people that get an NRDL, and the sales aren't that great, right? We got to continue pushing. We've got other work to do on the sales side as well. CMC is very well in control to be able to capture the reimbursement. I think that isn't as big of a risk factor.
Got it. Thank you. We don't see any questions online, but let me ask two very quick ones. One, on your thoughts on current anti-corruption campaign, the impact on Hua, especially, and also, what kind of numbers should we be expecting, you know, this year, given current regulatory? Thank you.
Uh, the, uh, I think, uh, overall, um, for the Shanghai corruption, um, the activities and the actions happen around the world. When I was at, uh, Roche in U.S., uh, we've been there before, and, uh, I think now, uh, in, in China, it's a good thing, uh, to help the community to recognize the good drug, a high-quality drug, that, uh, really brings the benefit to the patients, rather than, uh, some of the old drug or generics that, uh, potentially, um, has been, uh, um, eliminated or less, uh, used in the, uh, uh, U.S. and Europe, and still now getting into the promotion channel, uh, in China. So I think, um, um, for that part, I think, uh, is, uh, a very good, uh, gesture, uh, for the innovation and, uh, for Hua Medicine. George, do you have your insight?
No, I think that's right. I think, you know, the anti-corruption is impacting everyone. I would just say that for us, you know, high volume, extremely high volume class of drug, lower price per unit, right? We're probably not as impacted as much as some of these very expensive-... cancer drugs and also medical device stents, et cetera. We don't see that, but it does affect our ability to organize conferences with medical doctors, hospitals. People are more shy about wanting to hold those and accept them, so it will impact. We're not giving any sales guidance because it is, the, the monthly charts give Dr. Chen and I heart attacks as we see ups and downs.
I, I would say what we've seen is at the beginning, our lead hospital stocking up on inventory, so very, very high growth. I think we're seeing more stabilized. Something a little bit more than, you know, more than, you know, what we've done already the first half is probably fair for the second half. I think, I think at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter what our year sales are because they're gonna be a lot less than the RMB 1.2 billion we're gonna collect this year, right? We're not gonna exceed that.
We can tell you that our year-end guidance, cash balance will be far in excess of 1 billion, probably close to the RMB 1.2 billion-RMB 1.3 billion range, which actually I looked it was actually comparable or even higher than what our IPO, post-IPO balance was. We haven't raised any money through non-dilutive equity financing during that period. This has all been collected through payments through those agreements. We're pretty excited that our cash continues to accumulate, and we've got this NRDL to help launch our sales and increase and broaden access in the hospital. Unfortunately, we just can't give you sales. I, I'll tell you very honestly that Dr. Chen and I have been off on our estimates already a couple of times internally as we speak with Bayer.
We'll continue pushing to increase the sales and access on that.
Yeah. Overall, I think the expectation is roughly 8 x- 10x after the NRDL. Those are the things that how we can talk about. Most importantly, those are the collaborative efforts between Hua Medicine and Bayer. Bayer is at the front end to meet with physicians and talk about, you know, the mechanisms of actions, the benefit of the drug, and scientific medical educations. We are confident with our partners, they can do their job very well, and they have been doing their job very well with their Acarbose in China. I, I, I think we have another call around 10.
Yeah, we have a Chinese one, so we'll, we'll need to wrap it up, Chris.
Oh.
Unless we've got one anymore, I think we'll need to conclude.
Yeah. First off, thank you, Dr. Chen and George. Hope to see you pretty soon. Thank you.
Yep.
Okay.
Thank you, everyone.
Thank you. Bye-bye.