Qilekang Establishes Internet Hospital in Yinchuan and Plans to Build Pharmaceutical Logistics Base

Following its establishment of an internet hospital in the Liwan District of Guangzhou last year, POMDOCTOR LIMITED, which originated as a pharmaceutical e-commerce platform, has taken further action by launching an internet hospital in Yinchuan on March 19, continuing to deepen its presence in the healthcare sector."Medical Care, Pharmaceuticals, Diagnostics, and Insurance" Integrated Development Model.

Jiang Haidong, CEO of POMDOCTOR LIMITED (second from right), signs the agreement with the Yinchuan Municipal Government on behalf of POMDOCTOR LIMITED.

VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) has learned that POMDOCTOR LIMITED will, on one hand, continuously optimize its supply chain and build modern logistics bases to reduce medication costs for the public. Meanwhile, it will collaborate with hospitals and third-party testing institutions to achieve data interoperability between test results and its internet hospital, thereby enabling efficient allocation of medical resources for patients. On the other hand, POMDOCTOR’s internet hospital will integrate with the Yinchuan Big Data Center to mine and analyze its vast troves of medical big data. The company also plans to introduce commercial insurance services, providing insurers with data support for policy sales, claims payment, and healthcare cost containment. Additionally, POMDOCTOR will deepen its cooperation with local hospitals in Yinchuan, leveraging its extensive R&D experience in internet healthcare technologies to help these hospitals implement comprehensive digital transformation solutions.

Previously, we conducted an exclusive interview with Shi Zhenyang, founder of POMDOCTOR LIMITED, on issues related to internet hospitals. He introduced POMDOCTOR LIMITED’s implementation plan for launching its internet hospital in Yinchuan, as well as the original motivation behind its expansion from pharmaceutical e-commerce into internet healthcare.

If corporate growth is likened to a human lifespan, POMDOCTOR LIMITED is undoubtedly in its adolescence, beginning to contemplate greater responsibilities and obligations. This reflection has long occupied the mind of its founder, Shi Zhenyang. As a renowned leader in pharmaceutical e-commerce and internet healthcare, he strikes outsiders as reserved and not particularly vocal. More often than not, he is pondering how to leverage the internet to enhance the efficiency of medical resource utilization, thereby benefiting a broader population. Those familiar with Shi Zhenyang understand the origins of this contemplation, which also represents his original aspiration for entering the healthcare industry.

According to Shi Zhenyang, POMDOCTOR LIMITED is a relatively young internet healthcare company that initially aimed to build a “comprehensive health and medical ecosystem.” This ecosystem encompasses a wide range of stakeholders, including hospitals, physicians, patients, pharmaceutical companies, physical examination centers, and insurance institutions. It is designed to genuinely provide convenience to the general public, particularly residents in remote mountainous areas, while creating social value. At the same time, it generates value for all parties across the ecosystem chain, facilitating smoother operations, fostering a virtuous cycle, and yielding greater synergistic effects.

Shi Zhenyang believes that the core of internet hospitals lies in leveraging internet technology to integrate information from doctors, patients, testing institutions, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and payment providers, thereby creating a platform for a new medical ecosystem. This platform offers services such as patient management, real-time communication, tiered diagnosis and treatment, and online consultations. It can break through temporal and spatial constraints, dismantle barriers between hospitals, maximize the value of physicians, and ultimately achieve efficient matching of medical resources, enhancing the efficiency of the entire chain.

According to VCBeat, with the support of the Guangdong Provincial and Guangzhou Municipal governments, POMDOCTOR LIMITED was authorized by the government last May to launch its first internet hospital. Building on its previously implemented closed-loop service model integrating “patients, doctors, and medications,” the company seeks to synergize its internet hospital operations with mobile healthcare, pharmaceutical e-commerce, and chain pharmacy businesses.

“POMDOCTOR LIMITED Internet Hospital’s breakthrough lies in leveraging traditional medical resources as its foundation and utilizing internet technology to provide a platform for the restoration of physicians’ professional value, while also addressing patients’ follow-up visit needs, thereby making medical care more accessible,” said Shi Zhenyang.

Leveraging its substantial prior accumulation in pharmaceutical e-commerce, POMDOCTOR LIMITED has also maintained a rapid pace of development in its exploration of internet healthcare. According to Shi Zhenyang,POMDOCTOR LIMITED Mobile HealthcareProduct“POMDOCTOR Doctors” is divided intoTwo portals: one for doctors and one for patients.Among them, the physician versionAPP atAugust 2015Launch，ProductPositioned for Chronic DiseasesDiagnosis and TreatmentandManagement, helping doctors complete multiple services such as patient management, doctor-patient communication, electronic cloud medical records, post-diagnosis follow-up, and medication recommendations. Currently，“POMDOCTOR Doctor"AlreadyObtainChina34Province exceeds300 unitsCityfavored by hundreds of thousands of physicians across hospitals at all levels, it has accumulated hundreds of millions of medical big data records, serving as a portable “air clinic” for doctors.“POMDOCTOR LIMITED” User App also leads the industry in registered users, capable of simultaneously facilitating online medical information interactions for hundreds of thousands of individuals. Its services include online consultations, intelligent triage, appointment scheduling, medication counseling, health check-up bookings, prescription inquiries, and payment for diagnosis and treatment.

As pharmaceutical e-commerce companies increasingly adopt the “healthcare + pharmaceuticals” model, how POMDOCTOR LIMITED can cultivate its own unique competitive advantages has become a key focus of Shi Zhenyang’s thinking. He believes that POMDOCTOR LIMITED possesses strengths in six major areas.

1. Pioneering the Closed-Loop Service Model for Patients, Physicians, and Pharmacists

The “Doctor-Patient-Pharmacy” closed-loop service model was pioneered by POMDOCTOR LIMITED and implemented entirely through its proprietary systems and resources. Authorized by the government and fully compliant with all relevant qualifications and approvals, this model has gained recognition from both physicians and patients. Its focus on second-opinion consultations and chronic disease management ensures safety for both doctors and patients. As physicians and patients establish their relationship offline with a thorough understanding of each other’s circumstances, physicians are better positioned to make accurate judgments during subsequent online follow-ups.

2. Leading Pharmaceutical E-commerce Business

POMDOCTOR LIMITED was among the first enterprises to obtain qualifications for online pharmaceutical sales. It ranked first across all e-commerce platforms in the pharmaceutical sector for five consecutive years from 2011 to 2015, laying a robust foundation for subsequent medication services in mobile healthcare.

3. Robust System Support

Independently developed multiple advanced systems to implement information-based management across the entire operational process. The industry’s most comprehensive pharmaceutical database, containing detailed information on over 30,000 drugs, integrates all data related to drug safety and usage, as well as all information required for Good Supply Practice (GSP) compliance.

4. Nationwide Offline Network

POMDOCTOR LIMITED’s chain pharmacy division is rooted in Guangdong and strategically positioned across China. By leveraging electronic drug supervision codes as its core, it achieves traceability management throughout the entire drug distribution process, ensuring drug quality and the safety of drug delivery.

5. Logistics Layout

As one of the first enterprises in China to receive approval for pilot pharmaceutical B2C logistics operations, it has continuously intensified its logistics infrastructure development, with Guangzhou taking the lead in achieving same-day delivery.

6. Possessing an elite team with expertise in medicine, pharmaceuticals, and the internet

In addition to the founder’s formal medical training, the core team hails from renowned domestic and international enterprises such as Amazon, Alibaba, JD.com, Vipshop, Johnson & Johnson, Xian Janssen, and Neptune Star. The team possesses extensive operational experience in e-commerce, pharmaceuticals, and retail.

According to the “Internet Healthcare White Paper” jointly released by VCBeat and Tencent Research Institute, as of last November, the number of internet hospitals across China had expanded to approximately 36. Among these, 25 have already commenced operational services (providing access via PC or mobile app platforms), while the remaining 11 had publicly announced signed agreements and were under construction in 2016. The entities establishing internet hospitals include pharmaceutical e-commerce companies such as POMDOCTOR LIMITED, hospitals, healthcare informatics firms, and government bodies.

In particular, local governments have prioritized the development of internet hospitals as a key initiative in healthcare reform, aiming to promote tiered diagnosis and treatment and address the challenges of “difficult and costly access to medical care” in regions with scarce medical resources. Provinces such as Guizhou, Sichuan, and Ningxia have emerged as hubs for internet hospital development, attracting a surge of market entrants.

POMDOCTOR LIMITED’s decision to establish its internet hospital in Yinchuan was also driven by the city’s favorable policies.

Leveraging the Smart Yinchuan Data Center, Yinchuan City has implemented groundbreaking policies in internet healthcare since 2016. These initiatives have not only filled the regulatory gap for internet hospitals in China but also attracted internet healthcare companies with high growth potential and complementary capabilities, fostering an industrial cluster effect in Yinchuan.

According to VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat), Yinchuan currently has only three Grade A tertiary hospitals, with just over 1,000 physicians holding senior professional titles (associate chief physician or above). Data from the latest 2017 "Fourth Sample Survey Report on the Living Conditions of Urban and Rural Elderly in Ningxia" and the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Bureau of Statistics for 2016 indicate that the number of residents aged 60 and above in Ningxia exceeds 820,000, with a chronic disease prevalence rate among the elderly as high as 89.7%. The relatively scarce local medical expert resources in Yinchuan are clearly insufficient to meet the substantial demand from this large population of chronic disease patients. Consequently, the city has adopted a more proactive approach in developing its internet healthcare infrastructure.

Shi Zhenyang stated that, based on the positioning of POMDOCTOR LIMITED Internet Hospital, comprehensive regulatory policies will facilitate its rapid and healthy development. Established in Yinchuan and operating under the city’s relevant regulatory framework for internet hospitals, POMDOCTOR LIMITED provides a safer and more efficient platform for multi-site practice by physicians across China. This model helps address the traditional imbalance in medical resource distribution while meeting national priorities for strengthening primary healthcare. Under this model, patients receive their initial diagnosis at a physical hospital; follow-up consultations with family doctors or private physicians can then be conducted remotely via the internet hospital platform without the need for travel. Additionally, the initial treating physician can facilitate remote consultations with specialist experts from other regions or arrange referrals as needed.

In terms of specific implementation, POMDOCTOR LIMITED will establish a wholly-owned subsidiary in Yinchuan—Yinchuan Qilekang Internet Hospital Co., Ltd.—to serve as the operating entity for Yinchuan Qilekang Internet Hospital. The company will integrate the already substantial Qilekang Internet Hospital platform into Yinchuan Qilekang Internet Hospital. In accordance with Yinchuan’s local administrative measures for internet hospitals, it will sequentially complete the multi-site practice registration procedures for physicians already registered on the Qilekang Internet Hospital platform, filing these registrations with the Yinchuan Health and Family Planning Commission.

According to the plan, POMDOCTOR LIMITED will gradually migrate the data of its internet hospital to the Yinchuan Big Data Service Center in accordance with the requirements of the Yinchuan Big Data Bureau, open up the interfaces of the internet hospital, and accept information supervision from the Yinchuan Big Data Bureau and the Health and Family Planning Bureau.

This process can be further detailed into a “Four-Step” strategy. First, the number of physicians affiliated with POMDOCTOR LIMITED Internet Hospital continues to grow; with this launch in Yinchuan, hundreds of thousands of physicians, primarily based in Yinchuan, will gradually complete their registration at the Yinchuan Internet Hospital. Second, establish Yinchuan POMDOCTOR Pharmaceutical Chain Co., Ltd. to obtain the “Certificate for Internet Transaction Services” and accept local regulatory oversight. Third, establish a pharmaceutical company and build a modern logistics base, while applying for B2C pharmaceutical logistics qualifications. Fourth, assist at least one Grade 3A hospital in Yinchuan in implementing a comprehensive internet-based healthcare solution.

“We look forward to receiving greater support from the Yinchuan municipal government to promote and explore the sound development of internet hospitals, addressing the challenges encountered in practice.” Shi Zhenyang expressed high expectations for POMDOCTOR LIMITED’s establishment of an internet hospital in Yinchuan.

Following the Yinchuan initiative, POMDOCTOR LIMITED simultaneously accelerated its ongoing expansion in internet healthcare, with Shi Zhenyang setting the key tone for future development.

This includes continuously optimizing the service experience of internet hospitals in areas such as online consultations, diagnosis, e-prescriptions, and medication delivery. By optimizing the upstream pharmaceutical supply chain, it reduces medication costs for the general public. It also involves gradually collaborating with hospital laboratories and third-party testing institutions to integrate online test orders from internet hospitals, connect with physical testing facilities for order processing, and synchronize test results back to the internet hospitals. This enables mutual recognition and interoperability of test results, leveraging the advantages of the internet to optimize the allocation of patients’ medical resources. Furthermore, through big data analytics, commercial insurance is introduced to provide services such as sales support, claims payment data evidence, and healthcare cost containment for commercial insurers.

According to VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat), POMDOCTOR LIMITED completed a new round of financing worth hundreds of millions in February this year. Investors included Tianyi Investment Group (Zhongwei Fund), Sequoia Capital, JD.com, Greenwoods Asset Management, Orient Securities, Lihua Shares, Fenxiang Investment, and Tsinghua Holdings Yinxing, among others. Several of these investors participated in an internet healthcare company for the first time, highlighting the capital market’s confidence in POMDOCTOR LIMITED’s development model.

Furthermore, POMDOCTOR LIMITED has entered into a strategic partnership with Meinian Onehealth Healthcare. By leveraging complementary online and offline resources, the two parties are jointly building a more comprehensive closed-loop service ecosystem encompassing medical care, health examinations, pharmaceutical supply, and health management.“The closed-loop integration of medical services, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and insurance is being steadily advanced. Coupled with the recent launch of the Yinchuan Internet Hospital, capital, supply chain, medical resources, and service systems are gradually taking shape, making the future development blueprint of POMDOCTOR LIMITED highly promising.”