Internet companies do not only sell medicines

Catalyzed by the epidemic, the Internet medical and health industry has grown against the trend and is favored by capital, while the clarity and tightening of regulatory policies have controlled the "fire" for the industry.

In the situation where the profit model is unclear and the crowd is fighting, where is the value space of Internet companies? In general, from the perspective of the exploration direction of various enterprises, there are four obvious changes: resource links from online to offline, the scope of services from medical treatment to great health, the focus of innovation from "medicine" to "medicine", and the diversion channel from heavy channels to heavy content.

status quo

The Internet medical and health industry is growing against the trend

Multiple companies launched listings

According to the "China Internet Development Report (2021)" released by the Internet Society of China in July 2021, in 2020, the scale of China's Internet medical and health market reached 196.1 billion yuan, an increase of 47% year-on-year, and the report predicts that in 2021, China's Internet medical and health market will reach 283.1 billion yuan, an increase of 45% year-on-year; the overall revenue of the big health industry will reach 7.4 trillion yuan, an increase of 7.2% year-on-year; the scale of the medical information market will exceed 65 billion yuan, an increase of 18.6% year-on-year.

Year-on-year growth of 47%, this growth rate exceeds other Internet industries such as online audio and video (44%), cloud computing (33.6%), and it can be described as amazing in 2020.

The capital market is also blue-eyed. In 2021, large amounts of financing in the Internet medical industry are frequent, and the head effect is emerging. According to the "2021 Internet Hospital Industry Report" of arterial network, from August 2020 to September 2021, there were 16 financing mergers and acquisitions in the primary market of the Internet hospital field, with a total financing amount of 23.4 billion yuan, about half of which was in the C round and after, of which there were a number of financing mergers and acquisitions of Yuanxin Technology, WeDoctor, Dingdang Fast Medicine, Kangaiduo, and Good Mood that occurred in 2021.

In 2021, the Internet medical industry ushered in a wave of listing tide, WeDoctor, Dingdang Fast Medicine, Zhiyun Health, Yuanxin Technology have submitted listing applications to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and Medical Pulse has successfully listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

policy

Regulatory policy is further clarified

Industry red lines are gradually emerging

In the rapid progress of the capital market, the regulatory policies of the Internet medical industry have been further clarified.

As soon as 2021 began, "standardized development" became the main tone of the policy aspect of the Internet medical industry. In the 2021 government work report, "Internet + medical health" was written in the third year, and the word was "standardized development".

After Internet medical care obtained the official "birth permit" in 2018 (that is, the "Internet Diagnosis and Treatment Management Measures (Trial)" and other three documents were issued), the re-diagnosis of common diseases and chronic diseases on the Internet was explicitly permitted, and the relevant management and supervision measures also had a framework and system design. In the following years, the number of Internet hospitals in the mainland has increased rapidly, and various new problems and controversies have emerged in actual operation, and it is urgent to further clarify and delineate the boundaries of regulatory measures, such as the definition of "follow-up consultation", whether the first diagnosis on the Internet can be liberalized, and the compliance issues of online prescription drugs.

In November 2021, the above questions were answered in the newly released "Detailed Rules for the Supervision of Internet Diagnosis and Treatment (Draft for Comment)", the first consultation on the Internet is still not open, and only online follow-up consultation is currently allowed, but at the same time there are more clear norms on how to judge the follow-up consultation, that is, the judgment power is handed over to the receiving doctor, and the doctor needs to get the relevant certification materials from the patient.

For the problem of online drug rebates exposed in the industry in 2021 and the problem of irregularities in online purchase of prescription drugs, the above-mentioned draft for comments also makes it clear: it is forbidden to cause problems such as unified parties and supplementary prescriptions, and the personal income of medical and health personnel must not be linked to the income of drugs and medical examinations.

"As medical reform enters the deep water area, the development of Internet hospitals should become a booster for deepening medical reform, rather than a safe haven around medical reform," said Chen Qiulin, deputy director of the Health Industry Development Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, saying that Internet medical treatment is destined to be a "strict supervision" field, because medical behavior must be a process of full supervision, traceability, and responsibility.

On the one hand, it proposes prohibitive measures for a number of industry ills, which will become the basis for future rectification and law enforcement actions, and will also affect the trend of the industry, on the other hand, it further clarifies the general principles of online and offline integrated management in details.

In general, Chen Qiulin believes that after the new crown epidemic, the progress of Internet medical related policies is optimistic, when the epidemic first appeared, multiple departments issued policies to promote the development of Internet medical care, and the regulatory rules are to promote the development of the industry while putting forward normative requirements for the industry.

Profit model

The industry is hot, but where can you make money?

"Although this industry is very hot, but it does not make money, the industry is still in the initial stage of development", this is Chen Qiulin's basic judgment on the Internet medical industry, pointing to the problem of the profit model of Internet medical companies that have not yet been clear.

For Internet hospitals dominated by public hospitals, Internet medical care is a part of the cause of public health, and the issue of profitability is not discussed, while for Internet hospitals dominated by Internet platforms, profitability is the basic driving force for the development of the industry and a prerequisite for sustainable development.

Under the mainland's medical and health system, medical resources are mainly concentrated in offline public medical institutions, in the case of public hospitals have been admitted in large numbers, the Internet platform to run Internet hospitals, where is its value space?

This problem can be glimpsed from the process of Internet companies all the way to explore the transformation. Medical care is a shortage of resources and information serious asymmetry in the field, at the beginning of the popularization of the Internet, registration is the first demand of the public, to WeDoctor, good doctor as the representative of the rise of the registration platform; with the rise of Internet forum culture, Lilac Garden came into being, gathering a large number of doctor users, and accompanied by the outbreak of the content industry and play a popularity and influence; after the Internet factory entered the game, the newly born industry giants with the distinct imprint of matriarchal capital, such as Ali Health, Jingdong Health on the pharmaceutical e-commerce as the main pillar.

With the liberalization and standardization of policies, online consultation has almost become the "standard" function of Internet medical enterprises, and in the context of the tightening of online prescription drug supervision, it is foreseeable that many pharmaceutical e-commerce platforms on the market will have a closer relationship with Internet hospitals with the right to consult and prescribe.

From the current situation, the only area that has been proved to make money is pharmaceutical e-commerce, and the situation in other fields is different, which is closely related to the operational ability of the enterprise itself, and has shown the siphon effect of the head enterprise.

Although there are already head companies leading the way, Internet medical care is still in the industry ecology of the crowd and a hundred flowers, and the anti-monopoly stick has not yet hit this field.

Explore innovation

Strive to explore the membership system of popular science content

Develop internet tools for doctors

In 2021, the exploration attempts of Internet medical companies will be more diversified.

What everyone is silently making up for is the content field. Ping An Health launched a doctor science popularization contest in the first half of the year, and collected nearly 2,000 popular science videos from doctors in a few months; Ali Health's medical deer APP also carried out an open call for papers, focusing on big health, maternal and infant classes, beauty classes, evaluation classes, etc., and the call for papers marked the level of the manuscript fee: 800 yuan / article; Baidu is also creating a new popular science content "Baidu Health Medical Code", with the help of the search entrance for the user's hot spot information advantage to produce content; ByteDance entered a little later, and its "Xiaohe" The APP set up a unique patient case sharing section, and carried out social action, and also began to put in the parent company's good video products.

Membership is a product model that many platforms are trying. According to the preliminary statistics of the research group, Good Doctor Online, Spring Rain Doctor, WeDoctor, People's Good Doctor, Lilac Doctor, Ping An Health, etc. have opened different forms of membership services, including monthly and annual private doctor services enjoyed by units of time, "family packages" with prices ranging from 9.9 yuan to thousands of yuan, and personalized customized packages for different needs of different groups, such as pediatric exclusive packages, Mengxin mother cards, rhinitis rehabilitation cards, etc.

Some of the others have targeted the doctor community. At the beginning of 2021, Tencent Health launched the cloud workbench "Tencent Cloud Doctor" for doctors, using the WeChat Mini Program entrance to help doctors with patient management and follow-up. Baidu launched the "Light Bamboo Health" brand, launched the mini program "Light Bamboo Butler" and the Light Bamboo Health APP Doctor Edition to assist doctors in patient management, and launched relevant project plans to support doctors and MCN institutions. Lilac Garden has been operating in the field of doctor community for many years, and while upgrading mature products such as medication assistants, it has also continued to cultivate grassroots doctor training.

There are also enterprises that are deeply cultivating on the road of specialization. Adhering to the "serious medical" strategy, the Federation of Medical Associations has set up academic committees, launched a multidisciplinary expert consensus project, and launched an online disease management SOP for diabetes and other diseases. Jingdong Health has continued to explore specialized diseases, and has opened 27 specialized centers such as heart centers, ear, nose and throat centers, traditional Chinese medicine hospitals, respiratory centers, and spiritual psychology centers, and led the establishment of the "Internet Medical Expert Committee" to explore online and offline integrated quality control standards.

Producer: Nandu Health Alliance "Internet + Medical" Research Group

Coordinator: Yin Lai, Wang Daobin, You Mani

Written by: Nandu reporter Li Wen