Offline pharmacy transformation has become a trend

With the good news of the medical e-commerce policy and changes in consumer buying habits, medical e-commerce has become a hot topic recently.

"Daily Economic News" reporter noted that Sino-US Tianjin Shike Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., a multinational pharmaceutical company, also quietly launched its official Tmall flagship store, becoming the first multinational drug company to open its own e-commerce channel in the domestic market.

An interview with reporters yesterday (January 5) revealed that many multinational pharmaceutical companies are currently deploying pharmaceutical e-commerce. On the other hand, the development of offline drugstores has slowed down significantly in recent years, and many pharmacies have suffered losses and have had to reduce the number of stores opened. Many drug companies have also started to separate their pharmacy outlets.

Foreign pharmaceutical company layout e-commerce sales

The reporter saw from the official flagship store of the Sino-US Shike Tmall. Currently, the company mainly sells more than a hundred high-quality products such as more than 100 states, comfort, and Baoli net.

For the intervening e-commerce platform, Sino-US-Skerk has externally stated that e-commerce is the company's rapid growth channel. “In the future, we will plan more key investments for the e-commerce channel and maintain the growth momentum of this emerging channel.”

The reporter learned that at present, foreign pharmaceutical companies like Sino-American SICK self-built platforms or cooperating with traditional third-party platforms to establish direct-operating platforms are a few, mostly foreign-funded pharmaceutical companies' health products, over-the-counter drugs (OTC), and home medical devices. Such as scattered in the e-commerce platform sales.

Shi Lichen, Senior Partner of Peking University Horizons, disclosed to the reporter of “Daily Economic News” that Sino-US-SKK should be the first multinational drug company to open a flagship store at Tmall. It is considered as a self-employed e-commerce channel and currently has many foreign drugs. Enterprises such as Bayer and Pfizer are all building e-commerce, and they are still watching the policy. "I believe that once the policy is in place, these companies will have relevant actions. If the prescription drugs are sold online in 2015, it is also for them. Opportunities can make up for deficiencies in existing sales channels."

The reporter noted that as early as 2013, there were foreign-funded health companies involved in the field of pharmaceutical e-commerce through mergers and acquisitions. In October 2013, the United States Kandle Company acquired the Baekje Xinte pharmacy, which has a medical e-commerce related business layout.

Pharmaceutical e-commerce policy barriers will break

Information from various sources shows that the official documents of the “Administrative Measures for the Administration of Internet Food and Drug Administration” are expected to be issued in early 2015, and industry policy barriers will soon be broken. At present, many industry giants have been laying out pharmaceutical e-commerce providers.

According to the website of the State Food and Drug Administration (CFDA), Jingdong has obtained the A license for internet drug trading qualification at the end of 2014. At this point, three traditional e-commerce giants in Ali, Jingdong and No. 1 stores all obtained online drug sales third-party platform qualifications. According to industry sources, the first list of prescription drugs to be released online will be announced after the Spring Festival and will cover 200 to 300 chronic disease drug categories.

Shi Lichen told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that in addition to online sales of prescription drugs is about to open, another good news for the pharmaceutical e-commerce industry is that it may be relatively simple to apply for a B2C license. "In the industry, it has been reported that after the B2C license application to the provincial level It is possible to handle, to handle the threshold and simplify the efficiency, the possibility of business intervention is greater, but now the relevant policies have not yet formally introduced."

Compared with the broad prospects of medical e-commerce, offline pharmacy chain stores can be described as cold. According to data from the National Drug Retail Market Drug Analysis System (RDM), the growth rate of the total pharmaceutical retail market continued to decline in 2013. Under the background of this industry, medical retail businesses such as Yixintang and Neptunus Xingxing have suffered different degrees of losses.

Not only that, many chain pharmacies also reduce the number of pharmacies by closing stores. At present, many traditional pharmacies have been transformed. For example, pharmacies such as the People's Pharmacy, Jiuzhou Pharmacy, and Yixintang have established their own online pharmacies. Sinopharm Holdings internal sources told reporters that Sinopharm also entered the Internet through mergers and acquisitions.