Yiyao Cloud Files IPO Prospectus: Empowering Pharma Enterprises with '1 Platform + 2 Tools' for Intelligent, Full-Domain Data Services
Pharmaceutical companies’ marketing efforts have long relied on offline connections established between medical representatives and physicians. During the recent pandemic, traditional pharmaceutical marketing approaches became virtually inoperable, whereas companies that had proactively implemented digital marketing strategies remained largely unaffected. In fact, amid the shifting marketing landscape, these companies may have even achieved greater reach and more effective promotion than under normal circumstances.
China is entering a growth phase in the development of the industrial internet, with businesses beginning to focus on efficiency improvement and lean management. Zhang Jianfeng, President of Alibaba Cloud Intelligence, recently stated that, accelerated by the pandemic, the digital transformation of traditional industries—which would have originally taken three to five years—will be completed within the next year.
In recent years, with changes in the policy environment, the era of high gross margins in the pharmaceutical industry has come to an end. The “4+7” volume-based procurement and national medical insurance negotiations have squeezed profit margins for generic drugs and innovative drugs, respectively, making cost reduction and efficiency improvement the primary challenge facing enterprises today.
On the other hand, the Two-Invoice System has been fully implemented, and the One-Invoice System is currently being piloted. The current Two-Invoice System has significantly reduced the intermediate distribution links between pharmaceutical manufacturers and sales terminals. For pharmaceutical companies to control their own costs without affecting sales, digitalization may be the only solution.
Chongqing Yiyaoyun Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Yiyaoyun”) is a company dedicated to empowering pharmaceutical enterprises in their digital marketing transformation. Its Yiyaoyun SaaS product ecosystem connects pharmaceutical manufacturers, medical representatives, and physicians, standardizing behaviors, digitizing information, and structuring data across traditional scenarios such as academic promotion, customer relationship management, training, and CRO services. This provides enterprises with enhanced operational efficiency and data-driven decision support.
Yi Yao Yun was officially established in April 2020. The three founding team members left VCBeat with a deep impression of their confidence and determination. As Zhang Long, the founder and CEO, stated, “We are confident that our team can steadily optimize pharmaceutical digital marketing to achieve the highest standards.”
Zhang Long graduated from Shenyang Pharmaceutical University in 2007 and joined Merck & Co. as a frontline pharmaceutical sales representative immediately after graduation. With decades of deep engagement in the pharmaceutical industry, he has served as National Academic Promotion Director at Yilian, and as Investment Promotion Director for North China at Wansheng Renhe. He was also among the first cohort of traditional pharmaceutical professionals to transition into the “Internet + Healthcare” sector. His extensive experience has endowed him with a systematic understanding of the entire pharmaceutical industry chain, as well as unique insights and keen sensitivity to pharmaceutical industry policies.
Chen Tao, Co-founder and COO, has consistently focused on product operations. He previously worked at Ant Financial and Medlinker, before embarking on an entrepreneurial venture in the "Internet + Human Resources" sector. With extensive experience in marketing, operations, sales, and industry research, he has been directly involved in projects such as e-marketing for pharmaceutical companies, out-of-hospital prescription management, academic promotion, and physician-led scientific research. His core competency lies in resource integration.
CPO Jian Xiaoliang has been engaged in internet product-related work since graduating from Southwest Jiaotong University. He has served as an executive at well-known internet companies such as 360, Douban, and Huochebang, possessing over a decade of experience in entrepreneurship and professional practice within the internet and mobile internet sectors. He has a proven track record of successfully building products from scratch (0 to 1) and specializes in SaaS product management, design, development, and operations.
Their shared experience at the Medical Consortium filled Zhang Long and Chen Tao with anticipation for the future of digital pharmaceutical marketing, making them instant allies. The addition of Jian Xiaoliang further infused the YiYaoCloud team with expertise and insights into the digital transformation of the “Internet + Logistics” sector, along with a heightened focus on product development.
Chen Tao believes that,The pharmaceutical industry features a long value chain and high entry barriers, making it difficult for internet technologies alone to disrupt the sector in the future. However, they can certainly eliminate redundant links and help improve operational efficiency. As the industry faces rapid transformation and challenges, the resources and capabilities of the three founders align well with the needs of digitalization in the pharmaceutical sector, positioning them as the partner that best understands the digital transformation of domestic Chinese pharmaceutical companies.
Amid the continuous growth of the pharmaceutical digital marketing market, how has Yiyaoyun carved out its own niche?
Yi Yao Yun’s data analysis reveals that physician satisfaction with in-person representative visits stands at only 46%, while satisfaction with offline conferences is 69%. Despite significant investments of time and money, pharmaceutical companies are failing to truly meet physicians’ needs. Furthermore, traditional academic promotion entails high costs and demands a high level of professionalism from medical representatives, leading to challenges in controlling the effectiveness of such academic outreach.
Based on this, YiYaoCloud has developed the YiYaoCloud Platform and two mini-programs, “YiBaiFang” and “YiXueShu,” to serve pharmaceutical companies through a SaaS model of “1 platform + 2 tools.”
The YiYao Cloud Platform is primarily designed for pharmaceutical companies and agency managers, enabling them to formulate academic promotion plans, assign academic and marketing tasks to medical representatives, and monitor task completion status. It provides enterprises with data dashboards to track the progress of academic promotions, effectively supervising the implementation effectiveness and detailed cost breakdown at each stage.
Yi Bai Fang is a tool that provides pharmaceutical representatives with remote academic visits and instant communication with doctors to convey academic information. It is currently developed and used in the form of a mini-program, mainly for pharmaceutical representatives to implement academic promotion tasks and allow them to visit more doctors online.
Yi Xueshu is a tool designed for physicians to facilitate remote visits with pharmaceutical representatives and provide feedback on academic promotional materials. It also serves as a direct communication channel between physicians and pharmaceutical representatives, enabling more timely and efficient reporting of drug usage or adverse reactions. Currently, it is available to physicians as a WeChat Mini Program.
(Photo provided by Yi Yao Yun)
The three products in the YiYao Cloud SaaS ecosystem are promoted by leveraging existing relationships between medical representatives and physicians, providing tools for direct communication and management among pharmaceutical companies, medical representatives, and physicians, thereby helping pharmaceutical companies achieve digital marketing management. Despite its short history, it has already partnered with more than 20 enterprises.
In terms of business structure, YiYao Yun currently focuses primarily on academic promotion services. In the future, it will further expand its efforts into areas such as sales management, decision-making management, academic training for medical representatives, cloud storage and management of medical content, and clinical CRO services.Meanwhile, actively collaborate with government bodies, industry associations, and third-party partners to build a comprehensive suite of digital service capabilities for pharmaceutical companies, thereby delivering a truly one-stop, intelligent, and compliant SaaS platform.
The YiYaoyun team believes that although the pharmaceutical industry is transitioning toward digital marketing, it will not be entirely replaced by online internet-based models. Offline promotional methods will continue to exist, and companies should consider how to leverage information technology services to better support offline scenarios.
Currently, most domestic pharmaceutical companies rely on academic marketing for promotion. However, in recent years, with policy developments, the costs of academic marketing have risen steadily while profits have declined. Consequently, pharmaceutical companies are seeking a refined, data-driven investment management model that offers predictability and measurability to support decision-making. YiYaoYun aims to leverage big data analytics, once sufficient data has been accumulated, to help pharmaceutical companies transition their traditional marketing strategy formulation processes to online platforms.
Finally, Chen Tao disclosed to VCBeat that Yiyaoyun plans to initiate a funding round this September. Its primary objective over the next two years is to rapidly expand its customer base and market share, thereby supporting domestic pharmaceutical companies through their transformational growth.