Mirxes diagnosed with swelling revenue and losses ahead of IPO

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Hello reader,

Sticking to your guns is hard at the best of times, but it must be even harder when you’re in a leadership position at a loss-making company.

Today’s featured story looks at Singaporean biotech firm Mirxes, which has released some mixed financial results ahead of a looming IPO in Hong Kong.

Despite seeing its losses swell to more than US$70 million, the company recently took out loans worth a total of over US$27 million in a bid to speed its path to going public.

From the outside, that may not add up, but those inside the company are likely confident that they have the right approach. Time will tell, but regardless, conviction like that is worth taking notice of.

Today we look at:

• Mirxes sees revenue and losses increase as IPO approaches
• TikTok and ByteDance launch lawsuit to keep app in US
• Other newsy highlights such as VinFast expanding to the Philippines and AWS doubling down on its cloud investment in Singapore

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Mixed bag for Mirxes

Image credit: Timmy Loen

With Mirxes’ anticipated Hong Kong IPO coming up within the next six months, the Singaporean biotech firm has reported some mixed financial results.

While the company’s revenue grew 36.2% year on year to US$24.2 million in 2023, its total losses also surged 21.8% to US$70.4 million.

• Costs rising: Per its filing with the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, the increase in losses was mainly due to higher spending on research and development, which grew 22.3% year on year to US$22.6 million. The company’s general and administrative expenses also increased by 20% over the same period.
• All systems go for IPO: Mirxes, which develops test kits for the early detection of cancer and other diseases, announced its plans to list in Hong Kong last July. Its latest prospectus shows that it took out a loan for US$25 million in April 2024 and received loans worth a total of over US$2.7 million from co-founder and CEO Zhou Lihan the month before. The firm told Tech in Asia that it took the short-term loans out in order to speed up its journey to going public.
• Revenue mix: About 72% of the company’s revenue is generated from its early detection and precision multi-omics segment, which consists of the GastroClear and LungClear products. GastroClear, which is used to detect gastric cancer early, is Mirxes’ core product.

Read more: Mirxes records $58.7m operating losses and $24.2m revenue in lead up to HK listing

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