Morecare Transfusion Medicine Launches China's First Standardized Pet Blood Transfusion Platform, Targeting a Global Billion-Dollar Market Gap

“Current veterinary transfusion medicine is at the same stage as human blood application was 50 years ago.”

Faced with emergencies such as car accidents, surgeries, anemia, and hemolysis, if your cat or dog requires a transfusion of healthy blood, you will be confronted with the following choices:

First, you are fortunate to have arrived at a relatively large veterinary hospital that keeps several cats and dogs on-site, allowing for immediate blood sampling.

The second approach is to privately message friends or post on your social media feed to seek assistance from other pet owners in finding a suitable blood donor.

The third method involves contacting a cattery, kennel, or laboratory animal center through referrals from clinics or friends, and obtaining donor blood by paying a fee.

But either way, your kitten/puppy will need to wait and is highly likely to receive a non-standard blood product that has not undergone leukoreduction (to reduce immunogenicity) and lacks infectious disease screening.

In human clinical medicine, "the use of whole blood and blood components should adhere to the principles of rationality, safety, and efficacy." In contrast, in veterinary transfusion medicine, "immediate collection and immediate use" has become the norm, lacking donor physical examinations and infectious disease screening,Standardized processes such as blood quality control.Unlike the rapid scale-up of pharmaceuticals and medical devices, qualified animal blood must rely on healthy donor dogs and cats and be processed within 24 hours after collection.Leukocyte Filtration, Component Separation, and Formulation DispensingandCold Chain Reserves. From a product perspective,Single-Unit Blood ProductsHigh manufacturing and transportation costs, with a shelf life of only about one month.More critically, China has yet to establish national standards for animal blood banks. As a result, some leading chain enterprises are forced to build their own “micro-blood banks,” relying on local donors for small-scale production of blood-based products. This approach incurs high maintenance costs, yielding low profit margins after depreciation amortization.

Against this backdrop of urgent clinical demand, Guochong Blood Technology (Jiangxi) Co., Ltd. was established, joining forces with the Transfusion Medicine Engineering Research Center of the Institute of Blood Transfusion, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and the Ganzhou Health Pet Science Research Institute to launchThe World’s First Standardized Full-Industry-Chain Platform for Pet Transfusion Medicine, creating China’s first standardized integrated solution for pet blood supply and transfusion medicine. Recently, Guochong Blood Technology announced that Shanghai Hanwei Biopharmaceutical (brand name: Hanwei Pet Care) has officially become itsNational General Distributor, Leveraging Nationwide CoverageWith 65% market channel coverage, a mature brand marketing system, and professional customer service capabilities, we can enable rapid and precise delivery of blood products to end-user hospitals.

At a critical juncture for commercialization and promotion, VCBeat conducted an exclusive interview with Dr. Yu Qiwen, Director of the China Pet Science Research Center (H.K.) and CEO of Guochong Advanced Science, to analyze how toBuilding a comprehensive pet transfusion medicine industry platform based on the underlying logic of human science and technology.

By the end of 2020, having deeply cultivated the U.S. biopharmaceutical market and previously served asSenior Executives at Multinational Biotech CompaniesYu QiwenResolutely returning to China, I decided to delve into the pet pharmaceutical industry. “When developing innovative drugs for humans, animal experimental data are indispensable in the preclinical stage; however, the extremely long clinical development cycles and high risk of failure result in a significant waste of valuable animal efficacy data.”

Guided by this original intention, Yu Qiwen established Guochong Advanced Science and has forged close collaborations with the State Key Laboratory of New Drug Development / Gannan Institute of Innovation and Translational Medicine, as well as renowned domestic and international research institutions including the Institute of Blood Transfusion at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China Agricultural University, Huazhong Agricultural University, Nanjing Agricultural University, UC Davis (University of California, Davis), and the Keck School of Medicine of USC (University of Southern California).

Among them, the Gannan Institute of Innovation and Translational Medicine located in Ganzhou, Jiangxi"Establish a world-class modern model animal center and build the national major scientific facility for model animals"Centered on this, it has established a domestically leading Model Animal Engineering Center. Its team has long been deeply engaged in research on the mechanisms of animal diseases and scientific translation, possessing many years of experience in clinical diagnosis and treatment of animals, construction of disease models, biological sample databases, and standardized research.

The pet industry suffers from a shortage of veterinary services and medications. However, the key to conversion lies in determining what to convert, how to convert it, and whether the conversion is effective.

What is being transformed? We must return to the market and to demand.To gain a rapid understanding of China’s veterinary medicine market, Yu Qiwen visited countless veterinary clinics, studied domestic pet product companies, and consulted with hundreds to thousands of frontline veterinarians over a five-year period. He found that the pet industry primarily lacks a high-end medical ecosystem, particularly therapeutic resources for complex, refractory, and critical diseases.Including clinicians, innovative drugs, and the most fundamental clinical blood supplies.

On the market side, the "2023 White Paper on Trends in China's Pet Industry" shows that there were 105 million pet dogs and cats in China in 2022, with over 20% meeting the criteria for aging. It is projected that by 2025, this proportion will rise to 30%, resulting in at least approximately 31.5 million senior pets. With the significant aging trend, middle-aged and senior dogs and cats are more prone to health issues and diseases, driving up the number of cases requiring blood transfusions for conditions such as kidney disease, tumors, immune-mediated hemolysis, and surgical procedures.

At the application level, although pet owners’ awareness and frontline veterinarians’ procedural knowledge are both well-established, local small-scale blood bank inventories are extremely limited, and most veterinary clinics lack a stable supply of blood products. In emergency transfusion scenarios, the urgent need for donor recruitment, canine and feline blood type matching, and blood product processing often leads to missed optimal treatment windows. Furthermore, issues such as the absence of standardized donor screening criteria and an inadequate monitoring system for adverse transfusion reactions persist, while gray areas like the “blood cat industry chain” continue to draw widespread criticism.

From a regulatory review perspective, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs has not issued specific administrative regulations or mandatory national standards regarding “animal blood transfusion.” Within the core management framework, the Measures for the Administration of Animal Diagnosis and Treatment Institutions (Order of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural AffairsNo. 5 of 2022) Compliance requirements include:Only clinics or hospitals that have obtained the "Animal Diagnosis and Treatment License" may carry out blood transfusion projects, and they must clearly possess the service capability of "animal blood collection, storage, and transfusion" within the scope of their diagnostic and treatment activities.；Licensed veterinarians responsible for blood collection, crossmatching, and transfusion must be registered in accordance with regulations and comply with the continuing education requirements stipulated in the Administrative Measures for Licensed Veterinarians; the processes of collection and reinfusion must be documented in the medical records, which shall be retained for no less thanthree years, to facilitate random inspections by agricultural and rural affairs departments. Furthermore, in accordance with animal epidemic prevention requirements, diagnostic and treatment quality evaluation forms in most provinces and municipalities include relevant regulations, covering health standards for donor dogs and cats, labeling and traceability, blood bank and cold chain infrastructure, and red-line penalties.

How to Achieve This Transformation? What Is Needed Is a Comprehensive System of Veterinary Transfusion Medicine for Pets—Including industry standard systems, animal ethics frameworks, and application and teaching systems.

On July 29, the proposed recommended national standard “Technical Specifications for Clinical Blood Transfusion in Dogs and Cats,” organized by the National Technical Committee on Standardization of Companion Animals (Pets) and led by the Gannan Institute of Innovative and Translational Medicine, passed the project initiation review, holding promise to serve asChina's First PetClinical Blood Transfusion Standards, filling a gap in the field of safe blood use. Among them, Guochong Blood Technology is one of the main drafting units for this standard.

Specifically, while veterinary transfusion medicine can draw insights from human transfusion medicine, product development requires substantial improvements and innovations tailored to the physiological characteristics of dogs and cats. This encompasses the entire “vein-to-vein” chain, including collection products (such as disposable blood bags, blood collection needles, and pressure cuffs), component preparation equipment (refrigeration units, dedicated centrifuges, and leukocyte reduction filters), cold-chain storage and transportation products, quality control and blood-typing consumables, and particularly blood storage equipment for veterinary hospitals.

“The simplest examples are blood collection needles, blood bags, and anticoagulants. Currently, 99% of products on the market are designed for human blood collection. However, pets have very small blood vessels and a limited volume of extractable blood, yet we lack specially designed needles and small blood bags. Specific parameters such as blood coagulation rate and platelet count differ significantly from those in humans; therefore, using human anticoagulants and preservation solutions is problematic, and their formulation ratios need to be adjusted accordingly,” said Yu Qiwen. He noted that current pet blood transfusions are primarily classified and cross-matched based on blood types, but breed differences have not yet been incorporated into detailed standards. As a result, the risk of transfusion rejection reactions remains high. This necessitates “leukoreduction” of collected healthy animal blood—removing the vast majority of white blood cells—to reduce immune rejection responses.

Therefore, since 2021, Guochong Blood Technology has engaged in deep collaboration with multiple research institutions in the field of animal studies, including the Institute of Blood Transfusion of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, China Agricultural University, and Huazhong Agricultural University. Through extensive scientific research and practical application validation, the company has promoted the implementation of underlying technological logic and product innovation. On one hand, it has conducted in-depth research on species differences and disease models in dogs and cats to establish standardized blood transfusion protocols;On the other hand, we jointly develop whole blood and component blood products for pets, leading to patented devices such as specialized multi-bag systems for pet blood collection, anticoagulants, blood typing cards, and restraint devices.

With products and standardized processes in place, the decisive factor in the transfusion medicine industry chain lies in—healthy blood sources, namely, the development of donor blood banks.Consequently, Qiwen Yu has made multiple visits to the University of California, Davis—ranked among the top two globally in veterinary science and a leader in small animal medicine in the United States—to study the Blood Bank system established by Dr. Julie Burges, an FDA advisory expert.Leveraging global frontline industry experience and adhering to the standards of the American Pet Products Association (APPA), Guochong Blood Technology has established two major blood bank systems: “Community-Based Blood Banks” and “Closed-Loop Blood Banks.”

“Community-based blood banks” derive from pet hospitals, pet owners, and related information-sharing platforms, forming a regional, localized, and voluntary blood donation system. In contrast, “closed-loop blood banks” are supply animal centers independently established by Guochong Blood Technology, adhering to the highest standards of animal welfare and ethics, cleanliness, and quarantine, inspection, and disease prevention. Yu Qiwen emphasized: “The construction of closed-loop blood banks must fundamentally differ from conventional animal facilities; they should be animal breeding bases integrated with natural landscapes, such as mountains and water bodies, to ensure that animals do not lose their innate behaviors. For example,”Our blood donor dogs are housed in individual 3-square-meter suites, each featuring a separate living and sleeping area. They enjoy access to dedicated running tracks, swimming pools, and fresh-food diets, with sufficient daily exercise ensured to promote physical and mental well-being. To support this, we employ dedicated caretakers and animal nutrition experts, safeguarding the health, happiness, and welfare of our blood sources.We must recognize that only healthy donors can produce healthy blood, and only healthy blood can help sick pets regain their health.”

After nearly five years of product R&D and system development, Guochong Blood Technology has completedThe World’s First Standardized Full-Industry-Chain Platform for Pet Transfusion Medicineof the system, covering donor management, pathogen screening, leukocyte reduction, component separation, and cold-chain distribution, to ensure a fully controlled, traceable, and high-quality supply of blood products.

Building on this foundation, we will further advance the entire industry chain platform toward an upgrade into a pet transfusion medicine system and a global transfusion medicine industrial ecosystem. Yu Qiwen introduced that, through scientific design and comprehensive benchmarking against the mature development models and standard processes of human transfusion medicine, a complete VTMS (Veterinary Transfusion Medicine System) tailored exclusively for dogs and cats must include at least four major systems:

lEstablish group standards and even national standards across multiple dimensions, including donor sourcing, blood collection protocols, storage conditions, transportation requirements, indication selection, component blood separation, clinical application, and management of adverse reactions;

lBased on the specialized category of laboratory animals, establish and delineate exclusive categories for “blood-donor animals” and “blood-recipient animals,” and formulate associated ethical and welfare standards;

lIn accordance with the exclusive ethics and welfare standards for blood donor animals, establish standardized blood banks for donor animals: a closed-system pet blood center and a community-based pet blood center.

lFormulate expert guidelines on clinical blood use in pets (including indications for selection), technical specifications for pet blood storage, management measures for pet blood traceability, quarantine and inspection requirements for donor animals, procedures for the separation and preparation of pet blood products, detailed classification rules for pet blood products, and other related documents.

Is it effective? What is required is dual validation of production capacity implementation and channel expansion.Currently, Guochong Blood Technology has leveraged the Model Animal Engineering Research Center of the Gannan Innovation and Translational Medicine Institute (equipped with SPF/A2-level animal facilities and AAALAC international accreditation) to establish the first regional blood bank in Jiangxi Province.Currently initiatedConduct MVP (Minimum Viable Product) model testing for pet blood products.

Yu Qiwen pointed out that the fourth quarter will be a critical pilot-scale phase for Guochong Blood Technology. Through testing, the company aims to assess blood volume demands across different hospitals in various cities, address quality control issues arising in links such as transportation and supply from blood centers to clinical hospitals, refine and implement SOPs and SMPs, and determine the scale for subsequent commercial scale-up.“Based on current data, the blood transfusion industry chain and blood bank capacity construction need to be expanded by at least 15 times, reaching a 30-fold scale by the end of next year to meet market demand.”

In terms of commercialization, Guochong Blood Technology has adopted a national exclusive distributorship model in China, partnering with Hanwei Biopharmaceuticals. First,Promotion“Eight Cities, Twenty Hospitals” InitiativeEstablishment of a Clinical Validation Center for Veterinary Transfusion Medicine Project,Rapidly expand nationwide channels. Guochong Blood Technology provides blood product preparations, while Hanwei Biomedical supplies a distribution network covering 65% of the Chinese market, along with established brand marketing and professional customer service capabilities, reaching nearly 20,000 end-user veterinary clinics.

The underlying logic of this approach is that China’s pet healthcare industry started relatively late, and pet hospitals, as the primary treatment providers, currently represent the main channel for reaching end-user pet owners, particularly in the clinical adjunct field of transfusion medicine. For pet hospitals, standardized blood products are not merely surgical consumables; they will also determine whether these institutions can handle advanced medical services such as major surgeries and critical care, thereby achieving higher treatment prices and gross profit margins.

In terms of the market, the proportion of pet healthcare exhibits certain differences between Chinese and U.S. data:

According to data from the American Pet Products Association (APPA), total spending in the U.S. pet industry reached approximately $152 billion in 2024. Of this, pet food and treats accounted for the largest share at $65.8 billion; supplies, live animals, and over-the-counter medications totaled $33.3 billion; and veterinary care and product sales amounted to $39.8 billion.

The “2025 China Pet Industry White Paper” shows that in 2024, the urban pet (dog and cat) consumer market reached RMB 300.2 billion, a 7.5% increase from 2023. The urban pet (dog and cat) market in China is projected to reach RMB 404.2 billion by 2027. According to Frost & Sullivan, the Chinese pet pharmaceutical market was valued at RMB 20.95 billion in 2024 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.4% from 2025 to 2029, reaching RMB 35.41 billion, thereby entering a phase of rapid development.

According to GMI Insights data, the global market size for animal blood and its components reached $622.4 million in 2022 and is projected to grow to $1.5928 billion by 2032, representing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.84%. Yu Qiwen emphasized, “The market for pet transfusion medicine is not small, as we are benchmarking against the global market from our base in China.”

This is a consumer market that has yet to reach scale.From a commercial logic perspective, veterinary medicine exhibits strong consumer-driven characteristics—the payer is not the end user. Service providers deliver products and ancillary services to clients, rather than offering treatment plans alone. In such an early-stage market, innovative platform entities with potential uniqueness, coupled with robust distribution channels and production capacity building, will rapidly achieve high-speed expansion and sustain positive cash flow.

“In the field of veterinary medicine, particularly in transfusion medicine, Guochong Blood Technology is on par with global counterparts,” stated Yu Qiwen. He noted that during previous visits and study tours, although the concept of “community-based blood banks + closed-loop blood banks” from the California Department of Food and Agriculture was referenced, the standards and requirements proposed have already surpassed the FDA’s basic management standards for veterinary transfusion medicine.

“Pet transfusion medicine is not about simply establishing a company that raises animals, collects their blood, and sells it. I believe Guochong Blood Technology has creatively built a comprehensive system, forming a closed loop in discipline development, standard setting, welfare management, clinical guidelines, and industrialization. It offers systematic solutions that avoid being held back by bottlenecks or needing to take shortcuts, as our approach is a global leader.”Currently, Guochong Blood Technology has established a wholly-owned subsidiary in the United States. It is expected that upon completion of the MVP pilot-scale trial next year, the implementation of its U.S. solutions will be launched.

Looking further ahead, in the process of market expansion, Guochong Blood Technology will advance the construction of a standardized blood bank network, the accumulation of clinical data, and the training of specialized professionals, thereby facilitating the systematic, compliant, accessible, and professional development of pet transfusion medicine in China and globally.