Gancao Doctor Files for IPO to Build China's First TCM Physician Group

Licorice is a very common herbal medicine, but “Gancao Doctor,” a company established only recently, is anything but ordinary. On May 29, Gancao Doctor announced that it had completed a financing round worth tens of millions of RMB and would strive to build China’s first traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) physician group. A series of moves and plans by Gancao Doctor have once again drawn attention to the “Internet Plus TCM” sector.

Gancao Doctor is a mobile internet-based online traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) service application developed by Hangzhou Gan Zhi Cao Technology Co., Ltd. It offers features such as cloud consultation rooms, cloud classrooms, and offline consultations. Founded in August 2015 by Xu Zhiliang, who holds a doctorate from Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, the company was established by Xu and five other co-founders to address key pain points in the TCM industry. These challenges include difficulties, high costs, and poor patient experiences in accessing medical care; inconsistent quality of herbal materials; non-standardized decoction processes; and difficulties in preserving and passing down TCM knowledge. Leveraging internet-centric thinking and technology, the founders aimed to reshape the TCM service landscape.

"Internet + Traditional Chinese Medicine Requires More Collaboration"

Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) originated in China and boasts a history of over two thousand years. In the face of rapidly advancing modern medicine, what lies ahead for TCM? In recent years, the development of traditional TCM has lagged, compounded by frequent quality issues with herbal materials. The field has failed to eliminate its outdated or unscientific elements while also failing to fully promote its unique strengths. Consequently, TCM faces prominent challenges of stigmatization, marginalization, and mystification, leading to a bottleneck in its development.

Currently, internet-based Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is still in its nascent stage. The year 2015 can be regarded as the inaugural year of TCM on the internet. During that year, numerous enterprises emerged, and a series of policy measures and regulations related to TCM were introduced.

In Xu Zhiliang’s view, Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is still in its nascent stage, and public understanding of TCM remains relatively basic. It requires collective efforts to disseminate its core concepts, with practitioners across the industry working together to promote its development. For Gancao Doctor, partners far outnumber competitors. As an integral part of traditional Chinese culture, TCM retains a prestigious status and a large base of supporters among the Chinese people, despite the dominance of Western medicine. Rooted in cultural psychology, TCM holds inherent advantages in health regulation, preventive care (“treating potential diseases before they manifest”), and sub-health management. In the coming years, TCM is poised for rapid growth, aligning well with the national strategies of “Healthy China” and “Healthy Families.”

This Is What a Gancao Doctor Looks Like

In November 2015, the Gancao Doctor app was launched. As the largest Internet Plus platform for Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) in East China, the "Gancao Doctor" mobile application platform had aggregated more than 5,000 certified TCM practitioners and nearly 300,000 users by May 2016. It focuses on establishing renowned TCM expert studios in four key specialties: internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, and pediatrics. Currently, Gancao Doctor has secured special funds from the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine and is collaborating with institutions such as the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Zhejiang Chinese Medical University, and Zhejiang Provincial Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine to develop a vertical search project for TCM on the internet.

The Gancao Doctor App is divided into a user side and a doctor side, with each client interface tailored to its respective focus.

The main functions of the client-side are as follows:

Order Payment (Renowned Doctors & Quality Medicines, In-Person Consultation with Prescription Transfer, Online Payment, Fast Delivery)

Free Consultation (Licensed TCM Practitioners, Guaranteed Responses, 5,000 Renowned Doctors, Instant Replies)

Image-and-Text Consultation (Department-Specific Conditions, Multi-Dimensional Search, Online Consultations with Renowned Physicians, Appointment Booking)

Online Appointment Booking (Partner Clinics, Renowned Doctors and Specialties, Offline Referrals, Guaranteed Appointment Slots)

Wellness News (Health Highlights, Micro-Lecture Series, Wellness Experts, Professional Guidance)

The main functions of the doctor-side platform are as follows:

Mobile Clinic (Portable, Medication Recommendations, On-Demand Communication, Prescription Management)

Post-Consultation Follow-Up (Understanding the Condition, Grasping the Pathogenesis, Assessing Therapeutic Efficacy, and Precisely Adjusting the Formula)

Quick Response (Massive Questions, Expert Answers, Compassionate Care, Connect with Patients)

Text and Image Consultation (Triage, Patient Routing, Online Appointment Booking, Offline Medical Visits)

Physician Assistant (Classical Ancient Texts, Renowned Physicians’ Case Studies, Formula and Herb Search, Learning and Application)

It is reported that Gancao Doctor regularly organizes renowned TCM practitioners from various schools to conduct free clinic activities. To date, Gancao Doctor has been invited to provide free consultations at enterprises, communities, and other institutions, serving over 5,000 patients, with more than 300 doctor participations in these free clinic events.

“Jun, Chen, Zuo, and Shi” in Liujunzi Decoction

Liu Jun Zi Tang is a traditional Chinese herbal decoction brewed from six herbs: ginseng, Atractylodes macrocephala, Poria cocos, licorice root, tangerine peel, and pinellia tuber. It is known for its efficacy in replenishing qi, strengthening the spleen, drying dampness, and resolving phlegm. However, the Gancao Doctor team has imbued Liu Jun Zi Tang with a new meaning, representing the founding team of Gancao Doctor. This reflects a unique corporate culture at Gancao Doctor, where each member is assigned a corresponding Chinese herb name, such as Licorice, Atractylodes, or Pinellia. The six founders collectively correspond to the six ingredients of Liu Jun Zi Tang.

The founding team boasts a diverse range of professional backgrounds, including clinical Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), Chinese herbal medicine, internet IT, education and training, finance, and media operations management. This professional diversity enables the team to gain a profound understanding of the TCM industry, while their cross-disciplinary expertise allows Gancao Doctor to carve out a unique path. Much like the distinct roles of herbs in a TCM prescription—categorized as “Jun” (monarch), “Chen” (minister), “Zuo” (assistant), and “Shi” (envoy)—each member of Gancao Doctor plays a different role based on their specific expertise and position. Xu Zhiliang stated that employees’ nicknames not only reflect the company’s culture of equality and collaboration but also encourage everyone to fully leverage their respective strengths within their teams. It is reported that Gancao Doctor currently has a team of approximately 50 members.

Traditional Chinese Medicine Needs to Go Global

Gancao Doctor is not merely providing physicians with an efficient supportive tool. It has been revealed that the platform will subsequently drive its development across three dimensions: treatment, prevention, and preventive care for subclinical conditions (“treating disease before it arises”). By integrating online lightweight consultations, offline consultations, and herbal medicine delivery, Gancao Doctor aims to create a closed-loop ecosystem. This includes online appointment scheduling and triage, with prescription transfers facilitated during offline visits; online operations are leveraged to generate traffic and direct patients to offline clinics. Therefore, Gancao Doctor primarily focuses on capturing “incremental” market demand by serving: 1) patients in remote or underserved areas who previously lacked access to renowned TCM specialists; 2) young professionals who previously had insufficient time to seek Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) care; and 3) individuals experiencing symptoms not adequately addressed by Western medicine, such as those in a sub-health state. Leveraging the “Internet Plus” model, the platform connects and matches these users with TCM services, delivering a high-quality healthcare experience. Gancao Doctor operates its own offline medical institutions and maintains extensive collaborations with numerous partner healthcare facilities.

According to reports, Gancao Doctor will next deepen its presence in Zhejiang Province by establishing partnerships with hospitals to expand coverage and build a multi-dimensional network. It then plans to further expand its reach across East China, aiming for comprehensive deployment in key cities by the second half of 2016 to promote the platform more widely. The company will also collaborate with the European Pharmacopoeia Commission to explore pathways for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) to enter the EU and international markets. “Over the next decade, the Dutch government will provide €10 million in funding to support the Netherlands’ Coherence Healthcare Group and Gancao Doctor in building a TCM-themed health community in Maastricht, the Netherlands.” This initiative will involve exporting medical expertise and providing training and education for overseas physicians.

On “Internet + Traditional Chinese Medicine”

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