Qingyun Health: A Pioneer in Multi-Channel Marketing Solutions Bringing High-Quality Medical Services to Grassroots Markets

“The GSK incident of 2013 already sent a very clear signal to the industry: the traditional pharmaceutical marketing model was bound to be disrupted!” When discussing his entrepreneurial motivations, Yan Guowei (Luis), founder of Qingyun Technology, emphasized the opportunities and challenges arising from government macro-policy directions and enterprises’ intrinsic needs for transformation. In 2013, while serving as Senior Vice President at Eternity Medicine, he closely observed the entire GSK case—a milestone event in China’s pharmaceutical industry—and decisively embarked on a career focused on the digital transformation of pharmaceutical marketing.

Driven by foreseeable government macroeconomic policies, a suite of major healthcare reform measures—including health insurance cost containment, the one-invoice system, tiered diagnosis and treatment, and volume-based procurement—are being implemented concurrently, prompting both multinational and domestic pharmaceutical companies to actively pursue strategic transformation.Persistently high R&D and labor costs, difficulty in reaching key stakeholders and vast markets, and stringent compliance requirements have further squeezed corporate profits, rendering traditional marketing methods obsolete.Deepening in-hospital market penetration, broadening out-of-hospital market reach, rapidly capturing market share for innovative products, securing precise endorsement from key opinion leaders (KOLs), and efficiently and compliantly penetrating the primary care market are precisely the urgent needs of enterprises during this period of painful transition.

Qingyun Technology is a pioneer in multi-channel marketing solutions focused on the grassroots market. Leveraging its self-developed Zhiyun SCRM system and big data analytics platform, Qingyun Technology provides pharmaceutical brands with integrated digital solutions and marketing services that encompass strategy, software, big data, and implementation teams.Since 2017, Qingyun Technology has covered more than 7,300 primary-care hospitals and accumulated behavioral data from 330,000 primary-care physicians. It has participated in remote precision-marketing projects centered on virtual representatives for fifteen multinational medical enterprises (covering more than twenty brands).The therapeutic areas covered include cardiovascular disease, diabetes, respiratory disorders, vaccines, urology, anti-infectives, and oncology.

When discussing Qingyun Technology’s products, Luis elaborated that the company brand “Zhiyun Yilu” is derived from its core strategy: “Embracing the Cloud Sea of Clinical Data, Partnering on the Path of Medicine.”Leveraging high-tech digitalization as its core and remote assistant cloud services as its channel, it continuously provides clinicians with personalized medical services.Currently, many industry clients prefer to refer to “Zhiyun Yilu” simply as “Zhiyun.” There is also a company named “Zhiyun Health” in the healthcare sector that specializes in chronic disease management. Although this may cause confusion, among clients in the digital marketing field, “Zhiyun” has already become a well-known and familiar brand.

A review of the backgrounds of founders in pharmaceutical digital marketing companies reveals that most come from fields of marketing management and information technology. Luis, the founder of Qingyun Technology, stands out as an exception. With a background as a clinical physician, he has managed sales and marketing at multinational pharmaceutical companies and gained extensive experience working with domestic Contract Sales Organizations (CSOs). His more than two decades of industry involvement have enabled him to develop a deep understanding and insight into the needs and preferences of frontline clinical physicians.

“Like many professionals, we firmly believe that the primary duty of physicians is to diagnose and treat diseases to save lives. Most doctors prioritize treatment regimens with proven efficacy, consistent quality, and manageable side effects.” The various irregularities in the historical pharmaceutical market have led many pharmaceutical products to rely not on therapeutic efficacy and medical services for competitive advantage, but rather on simplistic and crude drivers such as financial incentives and relationship-based marketing.

In recent years, the pharmaceutical industry has witnessed a wave of digital transformation, with numerous pharmaceutical companies experimenting with digital marketing to reshape traditional promotional models, leading to the continuous emergence of various digital tools. The sudden outbreak of the pandemic in 2020 further accelerated the digital transformation of pharmaceutical marketing.

Luis believes: “Guided by national policies and driven by technological advancements, pharmaceutical marketing will ultimately return to its essence of medical services.No matter how innovation evolves, the essence of a pharmaceutical sales representative remains to accurately deliver the latest product information and clinical treatment advancements to physicians in need, providing convenient medical services and customer support through channels preferred by doctors. Meanwhile, clinicians independently select appropriate diagnostic and therapeutic regimens to alleviate patients’ suffering. This constitutes the cornerstone of pharmaceutical marketing.

What Qingyun Technology focuses on isRemote academic detailing via virtual representatives has ushered in a comprehensive upgrade of traditional pharmaceutical marketing, endowing it with digital logic and enhanced efficiency to better ensure precision, regulatory compliance, and alignment with the needs of clinicians.“Every call we make can help a doctor, and in turn, potentially benefit ten patients. This is the value we deliver as a pharmaceutical marketing service provider.”

It is highly challenging for pharmaceutical companies to build their own digital marketing platforms, requiring substantial capital investment. Therefore, selecting a reliable digital marketing partner is crucial. Luis believes that evaluating the reliability of a digital marketing firm hinges on six key criteria.

First, assess whether strategies can be customized based on the client’s actual business operations and market conditions.Digital marketing enterprises must possess professional market insight and strategic thinking capabilities, along with in-depth understanding and promotional experience in target markets and therapeutic areas.

Second, assess whether high-potential hospitals and target physicians can be precisely identified.Digital marketing firms need to possess a certain level of data accumulation and data analysis capabilities to assist enterprises in building a tagging system for target hospitals and physicians, thereby enabling cluster-based segmentation.

Third, assess whether you can help clients establish reasonable project KPIs.Digital marketing firms need to help clients reasonably evaluate short-term and long-term marketing goals based on the product lifecycle, and establish key quantitative metrics for assessment from process to outcome.

Fourth, assess whether the project can be efficiently and smoothly implemented.Key Success Factors for High-Efficiency Execution of Team Digital Marketing: Refined Internal Division of Labor and Performance Tracking Systems as Essential Execution Safeguards.

5. Check whether a comprehensive compliance management process is in place.Internal Compliance Control in Digital Marketing Enterprises: Possession of Relevant Qualifications (Such as Domestic Call Center Business License, Internet Drug Information Service License, and ISO 27001 Information Security Certification) Can Highly Ensure the Compliant Operation of Digital Marketing Projects and Data Security.

6. Check whether it has a data- and algorithm-driven intelligent recommendation engine.R&D capability is also a core competency for the long-term optimization of output in digital marketing enterprises. The substantial volume of objective data generated through precise, multi-channel digital outreach requires companies to possess capabilities in machine learning, algorithmic analysis, and intelligent recommendation.

Currently, Qingyun Technology has independently developedRemote Visit SCRM Operating System, QA/QC Quality Monitoring System, AI Intelligent Voice System, Physician Profiling and Field Representative Support System,Proven track record of successful projects across various therapeutic areas. Notably, in the realm of virtual representative remote detailing services, the company successfully helped a client increase physician coverage from 10,000 to 15,000 while halving the number of medical representatives, resulting in a 13% year-over-year sales growth. Furthermore, the company collaborates closely with brand marketing teams to continuously refine physician segmentation and track the evolution of physicians’ perceptions along with their driving factors. Leveraging ever-improving 360-degree physician profiles and intelligent recommendation engines, the company consistently enhances the detailing efficiency of both medical and virtual representatives.

Luis stated that, in the short term, the company will continue to optimize its products and services from two aspects. First, it will expand online channels with higher physician engagement to comprehensively provide various medical services required for clinical diagnosis and treatment. Second, it will offer online tools to support physician-led patient group management, helping primary care physicians improve their patient management capabilities.