Chengdu International Medical Port Files for IPO: Aiming to Build China's Largest Pharmaceutical Trading Platform with $850M Investment
At the 2016 National “Internet Plus Healthcare” Innovation and Entrepreneurship Conference, co-hosted by the Chinese Health Information Association and the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission, the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission, the China-US Health Summit Organization, the Sichuan Provincial People’s Hospital, and Active Healthcare Management Co., Ltd. formally signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Promoting a People-Centered Proactive Health Service Model. Subsequently, the Sichuan Provincial Health and Family Planning Commission, the China-US Health Summit, CETC Software Information Services Co., Ltd., and Sichuan Railway Investment Information Technology Industry Investment Co., Ltd. signed the Strategic Cooperation Agreement on Promoting Proactive Health Big Data. The signing of these two agreements marked the establishment of China’s first Proactive Health Industry Alliance.
Sichuan has become a national hub for medical innovation and entrepreneurship in China. From the Sichuan Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and the Sichuan Provincial People's Government, to state-owned enterprises, local businesses, capital investors, and international experts, all have converged in Sichuan. The Active Health Alliance serves as a key driver of this medical innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem in the province.
It is understood that the Proactive Health Industry Alliance is committed to innovating Sichuan’s local healthcare model. By studying and integrating advanced transformation experiences from both domestic and international sources, the alliance actively advocates for institutional, operational, and technological innovation. Adhering to principles of openness, integration, co-construction, and sharing, it aims to build a forward-looking new service system for “proactive health,” thereby supporting the development of the health industry in Sichuan and across China.
Seizing this opportunity, VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) will launch a series of related articles, providing in-depth coverage ofThe Dao Active Health Industry Alliance, along with its member enterprises, government bodies, and experts, continues to closely monitor the progress of medical innovation and entrepreneurship in Sichuan. For ongoing updates, please follow VCBeat.
Phase I of the Chengdu International Medical Port Completed and Put into Operation
The relationship between medicine and pharmaceuticals is like that of a steelyard and its counterweight; neither can bear heavy loads without the other.In the industry of the Active Health Alliance established this time,Chengdu International Medicine Port Pharmaceutical is the only pharmaceutical enterprise.What kind of pharmaceutical company is this? What role does it play in the proactive health alliance industry?
Chengdu International Medical Port is a key project in Sichuan Province and a major initiative within the Western China Pharmaceutical and Health Industrial Park. It has been included as a priority-supported project in the Sichuan Province Elderly Care and Health Services Industry Plan (2015–2020). The project covers a total area of 1,120 mu, with net land use of 762 mu, a total gross floor area of 1.68 million square meters, and a total investment of RMB 6 billion. Construction is carried out in three phases: Phase I involves the development of an intensive comprehensive pharmaceutical service zone and a medical equipment zone; Phase II focuses on pharmaceutical R&D, healthcare products, a health information platform, and an electronic pharmaceutical trading platform; Phase III entails the construction of a highly informatized third-party pharmaceutical logistics zone, along with supporting facilities such as a medical and elderly care training center, testing center, and exhibition center.
Upon full completion and operational launch, the project is projected to achieve an annual turnover of RMB 60–80 billion, contribute approximately RMB 1.2 billion in annual tax revenue, and create over 10,000 jobs. It will become one of the few platforms in Chengdu featuring an online “Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Exchange,” China’s largest pharmaceutical testing center—a core third-party facility—as well as a major exhibition and trading platform for TCM materials and Chinese-Western proprietary medicines in Southwest China, an offline large-scale warehousing, logistics, and distribution hub, and a global TCM CCMS platform, thereby providing platform services to nearly 100 pharmaceutical enterprises. Once the entire “China Western Pharmaceutical and Health Industrial Park” is completed, it will encompass six functional sectors (medical innovation and R&D, pharmaceutical trade and logistics, comprehensive business and exhibition services, wellness and health preservation, sports and leisure fitness, and healthy living), laying the foundation for the transformation and upgrading of the traditional biopharmaceutical industry toward the health services sector.
According to Chengdu International Medicine Port Pharmaceutical Group, which is stationed in the parkChairman Yuan Pu stated that the Chengdu International Medical Port is poised to become a pharmaceutical industrial park with an output value of RMB 100 billion, and plans to establish the largest health and pharmaceutical trading platform in China. In September 2013, the “Several Opinions on Promoting the Development of the Health Service Industry” were issued, elevating the health service industry to a national development strategy, with strong state support for private capital investment in the medical service sector. In January 2012, the new version of the Good Supply Practice (GSP) for Pharmaceutical Products comprehensively raised the software and hardware standards and requirements for enterprise operations, effectively reshuffling the existing small and medium-sized pharmaceutical companies. Upon completion, the Chengdu International Medical Port will serve as a modern, specialized, standardized, and regulated base for pharmaceutical commerce and logistics, with its software and hardware standards complying with the requirements of the Good Supply Practice (GSP) for Pharmaceutical Products. The clustered and intensive development of the Pengzhou biopharmaceutical industry aligns with the provincial and municipal positioning and industrial planning for the health service industry, setting an industry benchmark for pharmaceutical trading enterprises across China.
“The Chengdu International Medical Port serves as a bridge, connecting hospitals on one end and enterprises on the other. We supply all hospitals in Sichuan Province. Pharmaceutical companies that join our platform do not need to worry about sales channels, which is why many proactively seek us out,” Yuan Pu told the reporter.
The Chengdu International Pharmaceutical Port was officially launched in October 2016. It has currently integrated more than 3,000 upstream pharmaceutical manufacturers, supplies medications to over 1,500 hospitals at the Grade II Class A level and above in Sichuan Province, and has achieved sales revenue of RMB 15 billion.
“Through mergers and acquisitions and restructuring of small pharmaceutical companies, a large pharmaceutical group was established with a registered capital of RMB 300 million, comprising more than 30 subsidiaries and employing over 3,000 people.”
In order to implement the Proactive Health Strategy proposed by the Sichuan Provincial Government, Chengdu International Medical Port, the China-US Health Summit Organization, and CETC Software & Information Service Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “CETC Softinfo”) have, through friendly consultations, decided to establish a long-term and stable strategic partnership. Leveraging Chengdu International Medical Port as the foundation, the international influence and organizational capabilities of the China-US Health Summit Organization, and CETC Softinfo’s expertise and international cooperation resources in medical technology, the parties will align with Sichuan Province’s Proactive Health Strategy to build an internationally oriented hub for the proactive health big data industry and foster the development of related industries.
Leveraging the industrial achievements and experience of the Chengdu International Medical Port, aligning with the Sichuan Provincial Government’s “Proactive Health” strategy, integrating pharmaceutical management with big data, introducing internationally advanced healthcare concepts, big data technological innovations, and people-centric service models, to build a leading proactive health big data service platform in China and develop a healthcare big data service industry that leads globally.
The true core of big data applications lies in uncovering the intelligence value embedded within data, rather than performing simple data computations. For the pharmaceutical industry, how should managers leverage big data to support operational management? Furthermore, how can big data applications highlight their intelligence value within the pharmaceutical sector?
1. Facilitates precise market positioning in the healthcare industry
Successful market positioning can accelerate a company’s brand growth twofold, and big data–based market analysis and research constitute the first step in brand positioning. To secure a share in the fiercely competitive pharmaceutical market, companies must develop a big data strategy and broaden the scope and depth of industry research data. By leveraging big data, they can gain insights into numerous factors, including market structure, segment characteristics, consumer needs, and competitor dynamics. On the basis of systematic and scientific data collection, management, and analysis, companies can propose more effective solutions and recommendations, ensuring that their brand positioning is distinctive and personalized while enhancing its acceptance within the industry.
2. Empowering Marketing in the Pharmaceutical Industry
In pharmaceutical marketing, every aspect—whether product, channel, pricing, or customer engagement—is closely tied to the collection and analysis of big data. Among these, two areas are of paramount importance. First, by acquiring and statistically analyzing data, companies can gain a comprehensive understanding of market information, monitor competitors’ business intelligence and dynamics, and ascertain their products’ market position within the competitive landscape, thereby achieving the strategic advantage of “knowing yourself and your enemy to ensure success in every battle.” Second, by accumulating and mining consumer profile data within the pharmaceutical industry, enterprises can better analyze customers’ purchasing behaviors and value orientations, enabling them to serve consumers more effectively and cultivate customer loyalty.
3. Supporting Revenue Management in the Pharmaceutical Industry
Demand forecasting, market segmentation, and sensitivity analysis are highly data-intensive. Traditional data analytics primarily rely on a company’s own historical data for prediction and analysis, often overlooking industry-wide information in the pharmaceutical sector, which inevitably leads to biases in forecast outcomes. If enterprises, while implementing revenue management, can leverage automated data collection software to gather broader pharmaceutical industry data and gain deeper market insights on top of their proprietary data, this will significantly facilitate the formulation of accurate revenue strategies and drive higher profitability.
4. For the development of innovative needs in the pharmaceutical industry
With the innovation and development of media platforms such as forums, Weibo, WeChat, and e-commerce sites on both PC and mobile ends, pharmaceutical companies can collect online review data to build a comprehensive database. By leveraging techniques such as word segmentation, clustering, and sentiment analysis, these companies can gain insights into consumer behavior, value preferences, emerging consumption needs, and product quality issues reflected in the reviews. This approach enables them to improve and innovate products, quantify product value, set reasonable prices, and enhance service quality, thereby achieving greater profitability.
Big data is not a mysterious concept. As long as pharmaceutical companies are adept at accumulating and leveraging automated tools to collect, mine, statistically analyze, and interpret these data for their own use, they can effectively enhance their market competitiveness and profitability, thereby achieving substantial benefits.