Jiuzhou Tong Strengthens Internet Strategy with Strategic Partnership and Investment in Weiming Penguin, a Leading Pharmaceutical E-commerce Platform

Recently, VCBeat learned that Weiming Penguin and Jointown Pharmaceutical Group have established a deep strategic partnership. Under this strategic collaboration with Weiming Penguin, all of Jointown’s OTC categories will be listed on Weiming Penguin’s pharmaceutical e-commerce platform. Additionally, Jointown will open its third-party logistics services, including warehousing and distribution, to serve customers of Weiming Penguin’s pharmaceutical e-commerce platform. Both parties are committed to exploring ways to enhance the efficiency of supply chain circulation in the industry.

The pharmaceutical industry faces prominent pain points, namely inflated transaction costs and low transaction efficiency. These issues include opaque pricing, excessive distribution links, logistical resource waste caused by multiple handling of goods, and slow capital turnover due to the numerous stages involved. Broadly speaking, these challenges stem from information asymmetry, and the Internet is currently the simplest and most effective means of optimizing information efficiency. The details of the collaboration between Weiming Penguin and Jointown Pharmaceutical are as follows:

• Seamlessly connect with upstream and downstream partners through technological means, helping upstream partners better convey first-hand information such as product details and marketing campaigns to downstream partners;

  
  

• Timely, efficient, and accurate information dissemination unrestricted by geographical boundaries, enabling upstream information to comprehensively reach across China in real time while allowing for the assessment of downstream implementation outcomes;

• The accumulation of transaction data enables big data-driven initiatives such as sales volume forecasting, thereby better assisting upstream enterprises in planning their operations. This provides a data-backed basis for launching new products and expanding into new regions. Furthermore, transaction data can facilitate supply chain finance services, alleviating cash flow pressures for companies along the supply chain.

  
  

• By effectively controlling key nodes and information, intermediate steps are reduced, enabling more efficient allocation of resources and capital. Meanwhile, parties across the transaction chain can devote greater energy to delivering specialized, differentiated professional services.

As a leading enterprise in the OTC distribution sector, Jointown Pharmaceutical Group operates more than 70 warehousing and logistics centers across China, establishing nationwide coverage that extends to county-level cities. The company manages tens of thousands of product varieties, encompassing over 200,000 SKUs of health-related products, and maintains in-depth collaborative relationships with thousands of pharmaceutical manufacturers and hundreds of thousands of pharmacies nationwide.

Weiming Penguin is an enterprise in the “Internet Plus” big health sector, established in November 2015 and founded by former Tencent executive Zou Xiaoliang. The nine-member founding team brings a combined 99 years of relevant industry experience: seven members hail from Tencent and Alibaba, contributing 64 years of internet industry expertise, while the other two are senior executives from pharmaceutical companies, offering 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry.

Weiming Penguin’s pharmaceutical e-commerce platform was jointly developed by product managers with a decade of extensive experience at BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent) in collaboration with the former core e-commerce team from Alibaba. In March 2016, it secured tens of millions of RMB in angel investment led by Matrix Partners China. In April 2016, it became a vice-chairman unit of the Pharmaceutical Logistics Branch of the China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing.