Total revenue was RMB1,047.5 million for the year ended 31 December 2019, including RMB1,015.9 million attributable to sales of Tyvyt, as compared with total revenue of RMB9.5 million for the year ended 31 December 2018.
Gross profit margin was 88.1% for the year ended 31 December 2019, reflecting the Company's ability to leverage our fully-integrated multi-functional platform and carry out efficient, high quality production of Tyvyt at commercial scale.
Research and development expenses were RMB1,294.7 million for the year ended 31 December 2019, as compared with RMB1,221.7 million for the year ended 31 December 2018.
The spending was mainly attributable to expenses incurred for our key ongoing pivotal or registration trials of Tyvyt in China.
Direct selling and marketing expenses were RMB692.5 million, or 66.1% of total revenue, for the year ended 31 December 2019, as compared with RMB270.1 million, or 78.2% of total revenue, for the six months ended 30 June 2019, and as compared with RMB136.0 million for the year ended 31 December 2018.
The year-over-year increases were primarily attributable to the successful launch of Tyvyt in March 2019.
To support the commercialization efforts, the Group expanded its sales and marketing team from a total of 264 employees as of 31 December 2018 to a total of 688 employees as of 31 December 2019, which was one of the major contributors to the increase in the selling and marketing expenses.
Payments under Collaboration Agreement were RMB499.7 million for the year ended 31 December 2019, represents the milestone payments for the various licensing-in products as well as royalty and profit sharing payments to third parties.
Loss and total comprehensive expenses were RMB1,719.9 million for the year ended 31 December 2019, representing a significant decrease of 70.7% from RMB5,873.0 million for the year ended 31 December 2018 during which, as required under the International Financial Reporting Standard ("IFRS"), the Group recorded a non-cash, non-recurring loss of RMB4,338.0 million on the fair value changes of preferred shares upon their conversion into ordinary shares at the Company's initial public offering.
Net cash from financing activities for the year ended 31 December 2019 was RMB2,109.3 million, principally attributable to net cash generated from our successful placement in October 2019.
For the balance sheet at December 31, 2019, the company's total cash and cash equivalent was 4,695.2 million.
In February 2020, we raised additional HK$2.3 billion through new shares placement, our cash position at the end of February 2020 was about US$950 million. ■