Shangyi Renjia: How Big Data Empowers a New Ecosystem for Traditional Chinese Medicine Amid Industrial Transformation
The 5th Future Healthcare Top 100 Conference, a premier gathering that consolidates industry wisdom, featured leaders in the broader health sector sharing their insights on future trends in health and medicine. In light of the robust rise of the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) health industry, Cao Xueli, CEO of Shangyi Renjia, presented to attendees a new TCM ecosystem in the internet era, integrating industrial chain layout, big data analytics, and intelligent AI applications. Building on this foundation, she put forward numerous key perspectives worthy of attention during the development of internet-based TCM, offering strategic and tactical approaches for value conversion across various business models.
“Internet-based healthcare is undergoing a digital and intelligent industrial leap,” shared Cao Xueli, CEO of Shangyi Renjia. “Under the national ‘Healthy China 2030’ strategy, and in the face of challenges such as an aging population, the burden of chronic diseases, and pressure on medical insurance, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is beginning to demonstrate greater value through its unique advantages in therapeutic efficacy and cost control. Meanwhile, TCM must leverage technological tools such as big data and 5G in the internet era to continuously explore new service models for patients. These opportunities and challenges represent the key direction and mission of Shangyi Renjia’s digital strategy. Of course, development standards and entry barriers for internet-based TCM should not be limited to meeting the needs of any single scenario. Instead, they should be based on quality and scenario-support capabilities, utilizing a full-industry-chain architecture to drive the dual-track development of TCM value product lines and digital intelligence solutions. Only through this dual-wheel drive can we truly realize the completion of a new TCM ecosystem. It can be said that future TCM will know no distance!”
In light of the development trends and iterative logic of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Cao Xueli, CEO of Shangyi Renjia, has conducted a stratified analysis of the internet TCM industry from an industry-wide perspective, focusing on two key dimensions: the full industrial chain with multi-dimensional scenarios, and AI applications empowered by big data. As big data and AI continue to rise rapidly, the TCM industry is transitioning from subjective, experience-driven practices toward objective, evaluable, and standardized models. This shift offers viable solutions for further enhancing human health management capabilities and achieving comprehensive, lifecycle-wide health coverage.
Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has been a “results-oriented” medical system since ancient times, emphasizing therapeutic efficacy. After nearly a century of upheavals and transformations, the TCM industry is now ushering in unprecedented opportunities and changes. The principle of “upholding integrity while fostering innovation,” which integrates tradition with the future, has become the guiding beacon and benchmark for the industry’s development.
Amidst the “crises” and “opportunities” in industry development, Cao Xueli, CEO of Shangyi Renjia, pinpointed the industry’s pain points and critical pathways.
First, market education for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) faces significant challenges. A substantial number of patients still perceive TCM within the confines of traditional medical settings, resulting in insufficient growth of the patient base and a gradual erosion of TCM’s perceived value.
Second, TCM classics are abstruse and difficult to comprehend; the experience-based mode of knowledge transmission is inefficient and highly regionalized; furthermore, there is a shortage of TCM practitioners, who also exhibit low mobility.
Third, the high entry barriers in the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) industry have become a development straitjacket, characterized by the dilemma that “insiders cannot scale up, while outsiders cannot break in.”
“In the internet-based TCM industry, only by conducting big data research and AI applications on the basis of the entire industrial chain can the most complete closed loop be achieved.” Facing the future health market, traditional Chinese medicine has unique advantages. By combining industrial chain layout with big data applications, we can promote the modernization and development of traditional Chinese medicine. In response to factors such as value extension in medical scenarios, improvement of TCM practitioners' value, and obstacles to industry collaboration, Shangyi Renjia has formed a three-dimensional industrial layout of “three self-owned” elements, covering the entire industrial chain and assisting TCM practitioners, TCM medical institutions, and supply chains in matching proprietary value realization spaces.
A comprehensive, multi-dimensional corporate layout across the entire industry chain will fully empower the traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) sector to transition toward a “new ecosystem.” Cao Xueli, CEO of Shangyi Renjia, believes that a development path expanding from specific points to broader coverage is an inevitable trend for the industry. Shangyi Renjia has taken the lead in establishing this “structural standard,” leveraging its first-mover advantage to drive the efficient application of internet technologies such as multi-scenario TCM diagnosis and treatment, health management standards, and AI-based consultations. This has injected “new momentum” into the popularization of intelligent applications, the standardization of DNA fingerprinting for Chinese herbal medicines, and the systematization of full-lifecycle service frameworks.
Regarding the current trend of “deepening offline presence” in the internet-based Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) industry, Cao Xueli, CEO of Shangyi Renjia, stated that physical medical institutions are an indispensable setting for TCM practice. Clarifying the value proposition and differentiated experience of offline entities is a critical issue that must be thoroughly addressed in any multi-dimensional scenario. “Shangyi Renjia TCM Clinic” is far more than a traditional clinic; it is a healthy living experience center, a showcase model for integrating TCM into daily life, and a vital hub facilitating the transition from clinical treatment to holistic health management. Managing self-built physical clinics is no simple task; it tests the applicability of the system, the effectiveness of guidance, and the replicability of operations. While it may sound straightforward, implementation requires precise judgment based on continuous validation, demonstrating the team’s professional expertise in the industry. The integration of online and offline resources is an inevitable path for development, and a full industrial chain serves as the cornerstone for industrial upgrading. Without ample space for resource integration as a carrier, future progress will be severely constrained; it is essential to infinitely expand the space in which resources can circulate.
Currently, Shangyi Renjia has achieved a scale of 20 self-operated clinics and 100 affiliated clinics through organic in-house development and external franchising, and has established collaborations with 100 public traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) hospitals to build a multi-dimensional closed-loop industry chain.
“Awakening data, accelerating the inheritance of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), and expanding the scope of TCM services” represents the original intent behind integrating AI into TCM in the era of big data. Striking a balance between “heritage and progress” has become the benchmark for Shangyi Renjia’s commitment to upholding integrity while fostering innovation. By providing full-lifecycle TCM services through an “online + offline” and “medical care + health management” model, Shangyi Renjia aims to cultivate a more diverse ecosystem of diagnostic and therapeutic services within the broader health industry.
Cao Xueli, CEO of Shangyi Renjia, stated that the company’s growth has benefited from its parent company, Chase Sun Pharmaceutical’s, accumulation of supply chain resources. By establishing a multi-dimensional, full-industry-chain model, Shangyi Renjia was able to “stay one step ahead” in building the foundation for the digitalization of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) services. This represents a significant milestone for Chase Sun Pharmaceutical’s healthcare sector and serves as a crucial basis for Shangyi Renjia’s industry leadership. In terms of user experience, it is essential to leverage digital technologies to conduct information research, linguistic translation, behavioral standardization, and innovative expression of profound TCM theories and concepts. This approach will enable TCM to emerge as a new ecosystem, introducing a series of novel experiences such as intelligent health information systems and health lifestyle centers. These advancements will support the informatization and customization of “people-centric” healthcare services across the entire life cycle.
Integrating big data applications with the millennia-old characteristics of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) has become a “entry point” for driving industry innovation. Extracting and translating valuable information from massive datasets will accelerate the AI-enabled transformation of traditional TCM, effectively addressing the industry’s “pain points”:
First, there is the issue of standardizing the description of TCM symptoms and the expression in TCM literature;
Secondly, the issue of correspondence and unification between Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and Western medicine terminology;
Again, the issue of standardizing the clinical experience of TCM experts;
Finally, the issues of scientific rigor and adaptability of smart devices.
Whoever can effectively address the aforementioned “pain points” will gain a “first-mover advantage” in the internet-based Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) sector. Shangyi Renjia’s proactive strategic layout has accumulated valuable, referenceable insights for industry development. In recent years, big data and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have become focal points across various healthcare domains. In the field of TCM, big data technology enables the organization and integration of classic medical cases from renowned veteran TCM practitioners and TCM knowledge bases into AI-assisted diagnostic systems. These systems provide physicians with treatment plans weighted by relevance, thereby helping primary-care doctors enhance their diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities. As medical cases continue to accumulate and AI deep learning advances, the system’s utility in medical practice, education, and research will also improve. The continuous accumulation and iteration of big data are driving the achievement of standardized, precise, and real-time service delivery.
Once data accumulation and validation reach a certain level, artificial intelligence technologies can be effectively leveraged—for instance, in TCM-specific clinical decision support systems and wearable medical devices. Empowered by various digital technologies, the quantitative output of TCM’s value will also be fully realized.
At the roundtable discussion titled “Surging New Trends: Opportunities and Challenges in Industrial Leapfrogging” during this summit, Cao Xueli, CEO of Shangyi Renjia, engaged in an open dialogue with Yu Jurong, Partner at Heju Yinuo Health Industry Fund; Wang Xu, Deputy General Manager of iKang Group; Liu Yan, Founder of Anhe Health; and Li Shuo, Co-founder and COO of Baoxian Jike. Drawing on her professional expertise and forward-looking market insights, Ms. Cao shared representative industry perspectives on the integration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) with digitalization. Using “big data” as an entry point, she elaborated in depth on the development mechanisms and future opportunities of the TCM big health industry, while sharing key decision-making insights accumulated at critical junctures along the industry’s evolutionary trajectory.
Amid the rapid development of the healthcare industry, particularly in the field of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Shangyi Renjia has always taken it as its responsibility to inherit and improve the industry ecosystem. Cao Xueli, CEO of Shangyi Renjia, stated that if TCM can be driven by modern technologies—such as big data, AI, and blockchain—it can address key challenges related to evidence-based practice, standardization, comparability, traceability, precision, and replicability. Any breakthrough in these areas would be remarkable! For TCM to go global, it must enter the international stage using language, interpretations, advantages, and forms that are widely recognized worldwide. By leveraging big data and AI, Shangyi Renjia aims to transform the subjective nature of TCM into evaluable, objective standards. Effectively applying these standards in health management and clinical diagnosis and treatment will expand the service reach, ensuring that everyone has access to high-quality TCM care. This is the mission of Shangyi Renjia.