Qilu Pharmaceutical and LinkHealth Smart Pharmacy Launch Strategic Partnership Focused on End-to-End Out-of-Hospital Patient Management

Recently, Qilu Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Qilu Pharmaceutical”) and LinkCare Biotechnology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of LinkDoc Technology (hereinafter referred to as “LinkCare Biotech”), officially signed a strategic cooperation agreement. The two parties will fully leverage the empowerment of medical big data to explore a comprehensive management model for patients outside hospital settings, thereby providing precise services to out-of-hospital patients.

Qilu Pharmaceutical and LinkDoc Technology have long engaged in in-depth discussions on pharmaceutical distribution, DTP pharmacy product line layout, and precise full-process patient management. As representatives of the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry and DTP pharmacies, respectively, the two parties have forged a powerful alliance, sending a strong signal to the industry and pioneering a new model for collaboration between pharmaceutical manufacturers and DTP pharmacies. It is foreseeable that pharmaceutical companies embracing big data-enabled smart pharmacies will unleash more robust growth momentum.

Qilu Pharmaceutical’s Commercial Director, Chen Xiaohui, Signs Agreement with Linker Biotech’s President, Song Yehui

Amid the rise of domestic pharmaceutical enterprises, Qilu Pharmaceutical has emerged as a new representative of “Made in China” in the pharmaceutical sector. As the company continues to grow, it has placed increasing emphasis on the critical role of technology in the development of traditional pharmaceutical enterprises. Xu Yuanling, Vice President of Qilu Pharmaceutical, stated that the implementation of the two major strategies—“innovation” and “internationalization”—has been key to the company’s continuous breakthroughs. Qilu Pharmaceutical is committed to developing innovative drugs that are novel and high-quality by global standards, aiming to become a world-class pharmaceutical enterprise.

To fulfill its corporate mission of “developing high-quality medicines” and “pioneering novel drugs,” Qilu Pharmaceutical not only leverages cutting-edge technologies to continuously provide more effective and safer medications for physicians and patients across China and around the world, but also adopts more modern approaches to ensure that medicines reach patients in a more convenient, affordable, and secure manner, thereby truly enhancing the patient medication experience with greater humanity and dignity.

In recent years, as national pharmaceutical reform policies have been progressively deepened, the domestic landscape for innovative drugs has significantly improved, providing more opportunities for growth and expansion to pharmaceutical companies with innovation capabilities and R&D strength. Amidst these favorable policies, how to leverage innovative technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and the internet to enhance pharmaceutical companies’ capabilities and refine the integrated out-of-hospital patient journey—encompassing diagnosis, treatment, medication, and rehabilitation education—has become a key area of exploration for pharmaceutical enterprises.

Currently, there are examples of advanced international pharmaceutical companies establishing a presence in the field of medical big data. By partnering with Linke Smart Pharmacy, which is empowered by medical big data, Qilu Pharmaceutical has become a pioneer among domestic innovative pharmaceutical enterprises in exploring the big data sector.

Driven by the needs of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises for technological innovation and efficient, precise end-to-end patient management, Linker Smart Pharmacy—a new type of DTP pharmacy empowered by healthcare big data—has emerged as a new strategic tool for Qilu Pharmaceutical’s out-of-hospital patient management.

According to Yang Wenlin, Vice President of LinkDoc Technology, Linke Smart Pharmacy serves as a key component of LinkDoc’s offline strategy and is a crucial platform for realizing the commercial value of LinkDoc’s patient-facing services. The operation of Linke Smart Pharmacy is entirely supported by medical big data and clinical expertise, leveraging an online-to-offline (O2O) model to deliver comprehensive, precision management of out-of-hospital patients within the Direct-to-Patient (DTP) pharmacy setting.

Song Yehui, President of Linker Bio, stated that the “DTP Pharmacy + Day Clinic” model of Linker Smart Pharmacy can be understood as a medical complex. It not only connects doctors and patients through Zero Kr’s Yinchuan Internet Hospital platform, but also, as an offline medical scenario, precisely links patients with pharmaceutical companies, achieving a closed-loop management across the entire process.

Empowered by ZeroKr Medical Big Data, Linker Smart Pharmacy integrates the four major platform functions of “Major Commerce, Major Pharmacy, Major Clinic, and Major Classroom,” providing patients with high-quality services such as pharmaceutical care, smart follow-up, medical finance, value-added electronic prescription services, value-added logistics, charitable drug donations, and patient education.

Among its diverse service offerings, Linke Smart Pharmacy has introduced a patient recruitment module, enabling patients to match with appropriate clinical trial programs based on their medical conditions to achieve therapeutic goals. As the provider of this recruitment service, Wang Yanan, General Manager of Houpu Pharmaceutical, stated, “Empowered by big data, Houpu’s recruitment business not only scientifically accelerates the clinical trial and drug development process, helping pharmaceutical companies improve R&D efficiency and reduce costs, but also aims to provide patients with more beneficial, innovative, and cost-effective treatment options, thereby improving their health outcomes.”

In just one year since its establishment, Linker Smart Pharmacy has ushered in the DTP Pharmacy 3.0 era, characterized by a dual drive of medical patient education and data-empowered new retail. This stands in stark contrast to the Retail Pharmacy 1.0 era, defined by undifferentiated drug sales, and the conventional DTP 2.0 era, which offered basic specialized medical guidance alongside drug sales. The DTP 3.0 era focuses on providing patients with personalized, full-cycle, one-stop health management services. To date, Linker Smart Pharmacy has established 45 offline stores across China, cumulatively serving 20,000 patients, and partnered with numerous pharmaceutical companies both domestically and internationally. Recently, it was honored as one of the “Top 5 DTP Pharmacies” in the “VCBeat Future Healthcare 100.”

In Song Yehui’s view, the achievements should first be attributed to the patient needs research conducted at the inception of Linker Smart Pharmacy, which focused on the different stages of disease management: the acute phase, the repair or progression phase, and the rehabilitation phase. This foundational work ultimately enabled the pharmacy to deliver efficient and precise pharmaceutical care and healthcare services, creating a high-quality “third living space” outside the hospital for patients. It also provided greater opportunities and actionable solutions for pharmaceutical companies to expand their out-of-hospital patient management models.