Xinrun Kangyi Files IPO Prospectus: A Decade of Leadership in Chronic Disease and Sub-Health Management Expands into Rehabilitation Hospitals

According to data from the "China Health and Health Statistical Yearbook," China's rehabilitation medical service market is about to reach a scale of 100 billion yuan.

Rehabilitation medicine is an emerging discipline that originated in the United States in the early 20th century and was introduced to China in the 1980s. Rehabilitation medicine, together with preventive medicine, healthcare medicine, and clinical medicine, constitutes the “Four Major Branches of Medicine.” While the aim of clinical medicine is to save lives and heal the wounded, the goal of rehabilitation medicine is to improve patients’ quality of life and facilitate their reintegration into society.

On the demand side of rehabilitation medicine, rising living standards in China and a growing population of elderly individuals, patients with chronic diseases, and people in sub-optimal health conditions have stimulated increased demand for domestic rehabilitation medical services. Furthermore, the Chinese government has consecutively issued multiple policies in recent years to promote the development of the rehabilitation industry. Guidance on the development of rehabilitation medicine was included in the 12th Five-Year Plan, the 13th Five-Year Plan, and the 14th Five-Year Plan released in March 2021, with the latter specifically emphasizing the promotion of market-oriented development of rehabilitation services.

Driven by both demand and policy, now may be the optimal time to enter the rehabilitation healthcare sector.

Hou Yan has also spotted the emerging opportunity in rehabilitation medicine.

Hou Yan is the founder and CEO of Xinrun Kangyi, a medical enterprise engaged in the trading and export of food, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices, as well as cosmetic products, while also conducting R&D on chronic disease management and anti-aging solutions. In 2020, Xinrun Kangyi formally entered the rehabilitation medicine sector by launching the “Jianshi High-End Medical Rehabilitation” project (hereinafter referred to as the Jianshi Project), which aims to establish a closed-loop model integrating online interaction with offline services upon maturity.

Before founding Xinrun Kangyi, Hou Yan had five years of experience as a clinician. “Studying medicine was certainly driven by the desire to treat diseases and save lives, but physicians ultimately serve a relatively limited population. I believed that entrepreneurship might enable me to serve more people.” In 2003, Hou Yan left the hospital.

After leaving the hospital, Hou Yan did not rashly embark on entrepreneurship. Instead, he first worked in market operations management at a pharmaceutical company for five years, rising to the position of Regional Manager within six months and achieving annual sales exceeding RMB 100 million.

In 2008, Hou Yan left the pharmaceutical industry and established Xinrun Kangyi in Beijing. Initially, the company’s core business focused on the export trade of food, drugs, medical devices, and cosmetic products. Over time, Hou Yan recognized that Xinrun Kangyi had developed its own R&D capabilities. In 2012, the company began engaging in product research and development in the fields of chronic diseases, anti-aging, and sub-health conditions, investing tens of millions of yuan in R&D over the following decade. “During this period, we faced considerable skepticism, with many believing our investments were too high without commensurate returns. It is only in recent years, as the rehabilitation industry has gained momentum, that people have come to recognize the correctness of our strategic direction.”

Hou Yan believes that Xinrun Kangyi’s formal entry into the rehabilitation industry in 2020 was an inevitable choice. This decision was driven first by market orientation, and second by the fact that “few companies in China truly approach rehabilitation with a medical mindset.” Moreover, Xinrun Kangyi had already gained a systematic understanding of the rehabilitation market over the preceding decade.

In China, the rehabilitation market exhibits a distinct disparity: rehabilitation departments in top-tier tertiary hospitals face severe bed shortages, while grassroots rehabilitation clinics remain largely unvisited. Moreover, the majority of rehabilitation services lack established medical records and follow-up care. This situation underscores the substantial demand for rehabilitation medical services in China, which remains unmet due to the lagging development of primary care infrastructure.

Rehabilitation medicine developed earlier abroad, resulting in mature models. For instance, the United Kingdom has established a three-tier assessment system, where patients are directed to different rehabilitation institutions based on their specific conditions, with referral mechanisms in place between these facilities.

A comparison reveals that the traditional rehabilitation model in China suffers from issues such as information silos, outdated technology, and a lack of standards.

Xinrun Kangyi’s solution involves establishing industry standards by sharing real-time health data via remote devices. The physician work center evaluates the data to determine whether patients should undergo rehabilitation at home, in hospitals, or within community settings, conducts follow-up assessments of patient status, and provides referral recommendations as appropriate.

At the heart of the entire process is the need for an evaluation framework, namely industry standards. Without such standards, there can be no effective therapeutic reasoning or principled treatment protocols; without criteria for assessment, it is impossible to evaluate the efficacy of rehabilitation therapies.

The prerequisite for establishing standards is a substantial volume of relevant data. “A decade of product R&D experience proved invaluable at this juncture,” said Hou Yan, who compiled a rehabilitation database based on a large number of clinically verifiable cases collected during the clinical management of chronic diseases, sub-health conditions, and the perinatal period. In collaboration with 140 experts from various departments across 31 Grade-A tertiary hospitals, he jointly formulated industry-wide rehabilitation and evaluation standards.

Industry standards provide data-driven support for clinical decision-making, enabling differentiated care based on disease severity. This approach not only enhances the quality of rehabilitation medicine but also conserves medical resources and improves efficiency.

In terms of rehabilitation technology, Xinrun Kangyi has first established its own expert team, comprising multiple experts and chief physicians with extensive experience in the rehabilitation industry. Secondly, it has formed long-term collaborative partnerships with 140 specialists from various departments across 31 Grade-A tertiary hospitals.

After establishing industry standards and an expert team, Xinrun Kangyi assembled a software development team to build three platforms that constitute its internet-based rehabilitation medicine ecosystem, which was launched in the market early last year.

Selected Online Platforms of the Jian Shi Project

The Jian Shi Project covers niche areas such as anti-aging, sub-health, chronic diseases, perinatal rehabilitation, and child development.

User acquisition comes from two sources: the first involves partnerships with wearable device manufacturers to provide rehabilitation guidance to their users; the second relies on online customer acquisition and traffic generation, where our proprietary science-popularization platform serves as only one component, complemented by public-domain platforms such as Tencent and Sina.These platforms have sections that require the addition of medical attributes. Xinrun Kangyi publishes popular science articles or videos in these sections and occasionally provides Q&A and identification services.

A portion of the internet users directed to the Xinrun Kangyi platform convert into registered users. According to Hou Yan, the system currently boasts a daily active user base exceeding 3,000.

Users requiring rehabilitation services can upload their data, such as X-rays, to the Standard Data Center for analysis, interpretation, and decision-making. Based on the submitted data and assessment criteria, the Standard Data Center provides rehabilitation guidance and treatment plans. Patients recommended for home-based rehabilitation can purchase necessary medical and elderly care products through the Food, Drug, and Medical Device Platform, which sources its products from leading domestic manufacturers partnered with Hexin Runkangyi.

The patient subsequently engaged in interactive consultations via IoT wearable devices.

Currently, all services of the Jianshi Project are delivered online, effectively integrating the diagnostic and treatment workflows of traditional rehabilitation medical institutions into an internet-based system.However, Hou Yan believes that serious rehabilitation medicine should also have offline support.

In addition to collaborating with offline rehabilitation institutions, Xinrun Kangyi also plans to establish an offline rehabilitation center hospital in Beijing (or Tianjin),The project is currently in the application phase. It is expected that within two years, a Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei model combining online and offline rehabilitation diagnosis and treatment will be established, and this model will be promoted to Shanghai, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Harbin, and Chengdu within the next 3–5 years.

Regarding how to integrate online and offline services, Hou Yan cited the example of a patient who had undergone four coronary stent procedures.

Post-Stent Procedure Rehabilitation is generally divided into the inpatient phase, the early post-discharge phase, and the long-term out-of-hospital phase. During the inpatient phase, patients should begin with light activities under medical guidance; high-risk patients, in particular, require access to professional rehabilitation therapists and electrocardiogram (ECG) monitoring equipment.

This phase can be conducted at Xinrun Kangyi’s offline hospitals, with data transmitted back to the physician work center, where physicians make judgments based on evaluation criteria.

Gradually, the patient regained the ability to walk and even climb stairs. The physician conducted a discharge assessment, formulated a post-discharge rehabilitation plan and exercise prescription, enabling the patient’s referral to home-based rehabilitation with online guidance from Xinrun Kangyi.

The Jian Shi Project is currently focusing on its internet-based rehabilitation system, with Phase II expected to launch by the end of this year. Building upon the existing infrastructure, Phase II will incorporate partnered offline rehabilitation hospitals, establishing an integrated workflow: health and rehabilitation education → data standardization center → medical and elderly care product distribution center → physical rehabilitation hospitals.

In terms of profitability, Xinrun Kangyi aims to drive the industrialization of rehabilitation through the entire rehabilitation value chain, establishing a service-centric profit generation model.

Hou Yan stated that the future of the rehabilitation industry will undoubtedly evolve toward greater accessibility for all. From a more optimistic perspective, it may eventually account for over 60% of the total output value in the healthcare market. Currently, the rehabilitation sector remains immature and is still in a phase of standardization. Those who can secure a significant market share early on will gain a substantial competitive advantage.

Many believe that the current state of dentistry and ophthalmology represents the future of rehabilitation, yet they overlook the years of accumulated strength behind the adage “golden eyes, silver teeth.” While the rehabilitation industry indeed holds promising prospects, companies must still take each present step with care.

“The rehabilitation sector is a vast field. Like all emerging industries, it faces shortages of both talent and capital. To drive the industry’s overall development, professionals must enhance communication and collaboration,” Hou Yan added at the end of the interview. “If the rehabilitation industry truly takes off, it will become a significant endeavor that enhances people’s health and contributes to their happy and fulfilling lives.”