From the beginning of last year to the present, the upstream of medical beauty has continued to be popular.
What to say? Judging from the stock prices of enterprises landing in the secondary market, the stock prices of leading upstream companies such as Harbin Sanlian, Aimeike, Bloomage Biotech, Haohai Biotech, Huadong Pharmaceutical, and Aoyuan Meigu all rose last year, with increases of 125.5%, 49.7%, 7.2%, 9.6%, 55.6%, and 40.6% (the stock price on December 31, 2021 compared with the same period in 2020). In the first half of last year, when it was the most lively, the increase of Harbin Sanlian and Aoyuan Meigu even exceeded 200%.
Looking at the primary market, according to the data of the arterial orange database, a total of 28 companies in the mainland medical aesthetic industry have completed financing since 2021, with a total amount of more than 3 billion yuan, setting a new record in history.
Among them, 23 are upstream enterprises, accounting for 82%. What's more, the lineup of investors standing behind them is luxurious. Whether it is Tencent, Xiaomi and other giant companies, or softbank, IDG, Northern Lights, Goldman Sachs, Hillhouse, Zhen Fund, Yunfeng Fund and other top investment institutions, their names have appeared in the financing news of medical beauty upstream enterprises. In addition, many companies have increased the quota after investors have invested.
"An early medical aesthetic company that makes bioactive raw materials attracted more than a dozen institutions to visit after completing tens of millions of financing." Wang Han, an investor who pays attention to the pharmaceutical industry, told Arterial Network, "Up to now, this project is so sought-after that it is necessary to find an acquaintance relationship like an old shareholder to talk with the founder of the company, and it is not easy to connect through a third party or the media." ”
What is more interesting is that Aoyuan Meigu, which was originally mainly engaged in real estate operations, began to change its name at the end of 2020 and announced its entry into the medical beauty track, and signed a number of strategic cooperation agreements on high-end medical beauty skin care products with muscle source medicine, KDMedical and other enterprises last year, thus officially squeezing into the upstream of medical beauty, and the stock price achieved several consecutive jumps in 2021.
The industry's super high heat actually comes from the change of the underlying logic.
"In the next 5 to 10 years, the driving force for the development of the industry is not demand, but upstream. The core driving forces are materials and technology. Jin Xuekun, founding partner of Mingfeng Capital, said.
"In recent years, people's consumption characteristics are undergoing major changes, coupled with the leading demonstration effect of Aimeike and Bloomage Biology, indicating that the upstream of medical beauty can give birth to giant enterprises, which is also an important reason for attracting investment institutions to bet." Song Gaoguang, a partner at Northern Light Venture Capital, told Arterial Network that more and more investors are engaged in medical treatment, and the concentration of professional talents has also promoted the investment in the upstream of medical beauty.
It can be seen that since 2021, the upstream of medical beauty is becoming a place where soldiers must fight.
Why is the upstream of medical beauty so hot? What are the big changes since 2021? What new trends are emerging? What challenges remain to be solved? In response to these questions, Arterial Network combed through and interviewed a number of industry insiders and investors in order to get a glimpse of the answers to the questions.
Plot: After spending more than 2 billion yuan, why did the capital collectively dig for gold in the upstream of medical beauty?
Judging from the situation of the entire medical aesthetic industry in 2021, the upstream is the largest area of financing frequency and total amount of gold, surpassing the midstream medical aesthetic service institutions that have been leading in previous years.
Investment institutions have switched fields, which is actually related to the current situation of the industry: the typical characteristics of the current medical beauty industry chain in the mainland are unbalanced value distribution, and the profitability of upstream enterprises is strong, but the profitability of middle and downstream enterprises is slightly weak, and the head effect is aggravated.
Why? After reading the financial reports of 6 upstream medical and aesthetic enterprises of Harbin Sanlian, Aimeike, Bloomage Bio, Haohai Biotech, Huadong Pharmaceutical and Aoyuan Meigu, Arterial Network found that their net profits were 539.8 million, 708.9 million, 555.3 million, 310.5 million, 1.895 billion and 211 million in the first three quarters of 2021, and the net profit margins were 76.17%, 69.25%, 18.39%, 24.65%, 7.49% and 14.79% respectively.
Such a level of net profit, placed in more than 4,000 A-share companies, is generally at the forefront.
In the entire medical aesthetic industry chain, middle and downstream enterprises such as medical aesthetic service institutions and traffic platforms have an average gross profit of 50%-70% and an average net profit of only 5%-15%. Upstream enterprises that can maintain an average net profit of 20% to 40% have naturally become a feast for investment institutions.
(Image source: Suning Institute of Finance, Mingfeng Capital)
On the other hand, the penetration rate of the mainland medical aesthetic industry is only 3.6%, while the market penetration rate of about 10% in the benchmark developed market (Ai Media Consulting research data), the future mainland medical aesthetic consumer population is expected to exceed 150 million. That is to say, the demand for medical aesthetics will continue to be very strong for a long time, and upstream materials and technologies can make potential demand a reality.
The performance of market data in 2021 can be corroborated. For example, the performance of bloomage biology, Aimeike and Haohai Biotech, the three giants of hyaluronic acid, continued to rise, and the revenue of the three companies reached 3.5 billion yuan in the first half of the year alone, the core reason is that users continue to favor hyaluronic acid products.
In the view of Jin Xuekun, founding partner of Mingfeng Capital, materials and technologies can turn potential demand into reality, and most of the materials and technologies are in the hands of upstream companies. "Like the Apple mobile phone of that year, I didn't know that there was such a demand at the time, but after having the Apple mobile phone, I knew that it was needed, and materials and technologies can drive changes in an industry."
In short, with its super gold absorption ability and competitive barriers, as well as the huge potential to give birth to leading enterprises, the mainland medical aesthetic industry has truly begun to enter the business growth stage with technology and product innovation as the king.
In this context, innovative enterprises looking for new materials and new technologies to meet new consumer groups, as well as improving service boundaries and efficiency through digital technology, will become the mainstream of the medical aesthetic industry in the future.
Battle situation: Leading enterprises launched an "injection war", and capital flocked to skin care raw materials and beauty instruments
In 2021, the upstream enterprises of medical beauty have accelerated their efforts in the field of light medical aesthetic products, setting off a wave of medical aesthetic products on the market.
The most concerned is the approval of recycled injection-related products. In April 2021, Ellensé "Maiden Needle", a product of Sinclair, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Huadong Pharmaceutical, received the "Medical Device Registration Certificate" issued by the State Drug Administration (NMPA); in the same month, Changchun St. Boma's "Polylactic Acid Facial Filler" was approved, becoming the first "Child Face Needle" approved by mainland China for Class III medical device qualification; in June, Aimek's L-Lactic Acid-Glycol Copolymer Microspheres Crosslinked Sodium Hyaluronate Gel (the second type iii "Child Face Needle") was approved for listing.
As a collagen hypertrophic agent, the "Children's Face Needle" and "Girl Needle" have the same indications, and can be used to improve wrinkles, increase elasticity, firmness, and lifting. The difference between the two mainly comes from the composition, the child's face needle is poly-levolactic acid, the girl's needle is 70% PB-S biodegradable material (Carboxymethylcellulose, CMC) and 30% of the micro-crystal ball polycaprolactone (PCL) is composed, in some ways, the "girl needle" shaping effect is better, so it is also known as the "child face needle" second generation.
According to the data of Founder Securities, the market space of the mainland's girl needle/child face needle will grow to nearly 3 billion yuan in 2025, and continue to maintain an annual growth rate of more than 20%.
As a large cash cow business, the competition will become more intense in the market volume in 2022.
In June last year, Shanxi Jinbo Bio's "recombinant type III. humanized collagen freeze-dried fiber" was approved for listing. The product can be used to fill the facial dermal tissue to correct frontal dynamic wrinkles (including inter-brow lines, forehead lines and crow's feet), becoming the first medical device independently developed by the mainland using a new type of biological material - recombinant humanized collagen.
At the same time, Sihuan Pharmaceutical, Shangli, Gao Demei, South Korea's Regen and other brands are also undergoing clinical trials of injection products, NMPA registration declaration, and the "injection war" of leading enterprises has undoubtedly officially started.
As one of the tracks with the highest upstream barriers, Botulinum toxin officially opened the "top four pattern" of commercial competition in 2021: the number of botulinum toxin products approved by the State Drug Administration reached 4, namely Allergan's Botoss, Ipsen's Jishi, South Korea's Biopharmaceutical Company's Letibao, and Lanzhou Bioproduct Research Institute's Hengli, three of which are imported products.
From the perspective of the competition differentiation of the four companies, the main positioning group of Botoshi and Jishi is a noblewoman with high prices; Letibao is mainly aimed at fashionable young people, and the price is in the middle stage; Hengli mainly focuses on the student population, and the price is cheap.
"Botulinum toxin is a supply market, as long as the product positioning is clear, it can quickly seize the market as soon as it is approved for listing." Wang Han said that in the case of Letibao, after its approval, it will ship nearly 200,000 bottles in the first half of 2021.
(Image source: Soochow Securities, "Nugget Botulinum Toxin: High Threshold, Strong Growth of Medical Beauty Upstream Injection Products")
The data gives a glimpse of the popularity of botulinum toxin. According to the iResearch report, botulinum toxin will occupy 52.9% of the market for injectable medical aesthetic consumption in 2021, but there is still a lot of room for growth in penetration. According to data from the China Plastic Surgery and Beauty Association, about 70% of hyaluronic acid and botulinum toxin products on the mainland market are fake parallel goods. In 2020, regular botulinum toxin sales in the mainland accounted for only 34%.
The lucrative market returns have also increased potential competition in the botulinum toxin market. At present, from a global point of view, there are at least 5 botulinum toxins under research, of which the fastest commercialization progress is Merz in Germany and Xeomin of Jingding Pharmaceutical, which is expected to be listed this year and next year.
Wang Han said that due to the particularity of botulinum toxin itself as a poisonous anesthetic drug, domestic companies generally choose to use the way of agency to shorten the listing process, which makes the competition of botulinum toxin products a game of time racing. "2022 will continue the trend of last year, and botulinum toxin brands with precise positioning, unique advantages or outstanding marketing capabilities are expected to grab a larger market share."
As one of the most mature medical aesthetic products, hyaluronic acid will begin to enter the field of functional foods in 2021. Due to the bright performance of the three leaders of Aimeike, Bloomage Bio and Haohai Biotech in the secondary market, hyaluronic acid has become a big hit last year. According to Sullivan's forecast, the hyaluronic acid market is expected to reach 12 billion yuan in 2024, and the market will continue to expand.
In terms of competition pattern, there are many approved hyaluronic acid manufacturers in China, almost all foreign brand products have entered the country, and 18 domestic approved brands have been approved. However, the main share of the market is mainly for four imported products and three domestic brands such as Aimek.
In terms of imports, South Korea's LG Yiwan, Allergan's Qiao Yaden and Gaodemei's Ruilan occupy the top three in sales; among them, Yiwan occupies 22% of the market share with high cost performance, ranking first; in terms of domestic production, Aimeike, Bloomage and Hao Haishengke are positioned as low-end, of which Aimeike's Hi body has become the leader in domestic production due to the differentiated positioning of neck lines and license scarcity.
"The attributes of hyaluronic acid in the future 'medicine' will gradually fade, and its use scenarios and frequency of use will continue to approach the 'beauty' attribute of skin care products, so that its market share in the fields of beauty and functional foods will gradually expand." Wang Han said.
At the beginning of 2021, the National Health Commission officially approved the request for hyaluronic acid as a new food raw material, and for a time many companies entered the game, intending to seize the track of oral hyaluronic acid. For example, Bloomage Bio launched the "Water Muscle Spring" hyaluronic acid drink, and the Internet red brand Hankou No. 2 Factory also launched the hyaluronic acid sparkling water "Ha Shui".
In terms of beauty and skin care, taking Tencent-invested Freda Bio as an example, in addition to the research and development, production and sales of raw materials, it currently has 11 brands such as "Yilian", which specializes in hyaluronic acid skin care, and "Dr. Yaoer", which specializes in microecological science skin care.
Meiye Biology, a hyaluronic acid enterprise invested by Dachen, also focuses on beauty and skin care, focusing on dr. Ling (skin care products), FMFM (body care), and natural melody (skin care and washing) three brands. Among them, the core ingredient of Dr. Ling (skin care products) is full-molecular-weight hyaluronic acid GaussianHA, which was introduced to the market in 2021, and the sales volume has reached nearly 200 million yuan in 5 months of listing.
Bloomage's financial report shows that in the revenue structure, Bloomage's revenue from "functional skin care" reached 1.346 billion yuan, exceeding the 703 million yuan of product raw materials and 576 million yuan of medical terminal products for the first time. From this, it can be seen that hyaluronic acid still has good market potential to be tapped.
It is foreseeable that in 2022, hyaluronic acid will continue to extend to tracks such as functional skin care and beauty, thereby expanding the boundaries of the market.
In addition to the three major areas of regenerative injections, botulinum toxin, and hyaluronic acid being competed by leading enterprises, segments such as medical dressings, functional skin care products, chemical peeling drugs, and microneedles have also attracted intensive attention from primary and secondary investors in 2021.
In 2021, shierjia and Chuanger Biology, as well as the financing of Boshe Biology, Unnamed Shiguang, Jia Kai Biological, Minowei Pharmaceutical, Guangzhou Xinji Pharmaceutical and other enterprises focused on this area.
Both Shierjia and Chuanger Bio are leading companies in medical dressings (known as "medical beauty masks"). Shierjia products include medical dressing stickers and stickers, membranes (including applicable masks), etc., Chuanger biological products include Chuangfukang series and Chuangermei series, the former is mainly used for adjuvant treatment of wounds, the latter is mainly used for skin barrier care and so on.
According to the prospectus, from 2018 to 2020, the operating income of Chuanger Bio was 214 million yuan, 303 million yuan and 303 million yuan, and the net profit attributable to the mother was 67.08 million yuan, 73.2278 million yuan and 92.4981 million yuan. However, in the first half of 2021, the performance of Chuanger Bio declined significantly, with revenue of only 108 million yuan, down 17.74% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to the mother of 21.2272 million yuan, down 45.1% year-on-year.
The reason behind this is the tightening of policies. Last year, the State Food and Drug Administration strengthened the supervision of the so-called "medical beauty mask" and "mechanical mask" products, resulting in the history of the medical dressing market relying on marketing to drive a significant increase in revenue.
More importantly, the barriers to research and development of medical dressings have not yet reached a very high level. According to the prospectus, from 2018 to the first quarter of 2021, its R&D investment was about 300,000 yuan, 600,000 yuan, 1.48 million yuan and 130,000 yuan, accounting for 0.08%, 0.04%, 0.09% and 0.04% of the operating income, respectively, as of March 31 last year, Shierjia had a total of 291 employees, including 2 R&D personnel, accounting for 0.69% of the total number of employees.
From this point of view, the medical dressing industry still has a long way to go if it wants to appear as a real giant enterprise. As of now, the IPOs of Shierjia and Chuanger Bio have all been folded, and the follow-up market performance needs to be tested.
But even so, as an important category in the upstream of medical aesthetics, medical dressings are still sought after in the primary market. Juzi Biotech has recently obtained a round of multi-billion level financing, and investors are reported to include Hillhouse, CPE, And Mingfeng Capital.
In 2021, Boshe Biology, Unnamed Shiguang, Jia Kai Bio, etc. are all focused on skin care brands and skin care raw materials.
Platinum House Bio mainly focuses on the problem of skin anti-aging, and it has built a set of "instrument + essence consumables combination play". At present, the brand product line is mainly divided into light medical beauty technology skin care products aimed at household scenes, such as household water photooxygener, freeze-dried essence essence solution, etc., as well as daily efficacy products such as repair masks, clean gels, etc. In 2021, the unit price of brand online customers is about 800 yuan.
Unnamed Light is a synthetic biology company that focuses on skin care ingredients, has established a database of natural bioactive molecules for plants and the human body, and based on this design and delivery of a skin care raw material with anti-aging functions derived from collagen.
Jia Kai Bio also focuses on the field of skin care raw materials, focusing on active substances, relying on skin microecology, autophagy and 3D simulation skin model construction and other technologies, providing skin care brands with nearly 100 kinds of products including soothing, comprehensive repair, wrinkle removal, whitening, scalp care, moisturizing, oil control and acne suppression, antioxidant, anti-blue light, etc., directly or indirectly providing products and services for thousands of domestic and foreign cosmetics brands such as Shiseido, Bloomage Biology, Shanghai Jahwa, etc.
"Our logic of investing in Jia Kai Bio has four points, one is that Jia Kai Bio has been deeply cultivating skin care raw materials for more than ten years and has a very good reputation in the industry; second, from the perspective of market demand, cosmetics companies have a sustained and stable demand for functional raw materials; third, at the competition level, due to the relatively small scale of raw materials purchased by a single enterprise (about 1 million to 5 million yuan), the downstream brand side has little power to build itself; fourth, Jia Kai Bio now has five or six thousand buyers every year, and is still accelerating its growth, with the potential to become a subdivision leading enterprise." Song Gaoguang, a partner at Northern Lights Ventures, said.
In the fields of micro-needle technology and medical aesthetic related innovative drugs, Guangzhou Xinji Pharmaceutical, Lanwei Medicine, and Minowei Pharmaceutical have all obtained financing.
The important role of microneedling is to improve the efficiency of drug administration and improve patient compliance, which is a new technological increment for the medical aesthetic industry. Guangzhou Xinji Pharmaceutical has six core preparation technologies, and soluble microneedle industrialization preparation technology is one of them, and there are currently no products on the market.
Founded in February 2021, Minoway Pharmaceutical focuses on the development of new drugs in the field of medical aesthetics, there is currently 1 product in the field of medical aesthetics in clinical research, and a number of products in the field of medical aesthetics are in the pre-clinical development stage, and it is expected that 3-4 products will be declared in China and the United States in 2022.
Founded in 2016, with the micro-core of the doctoral team of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, it has successively broken through the two major difficulties of microneedle drug grade GMP mass production: high-precision microneedle mold design preparation and automation, modular production process, which can fully meet the consistency, automation and cleanliness requirements of pharmaceutical-grade microneedle production.
"The upstream of medical beauty is generally some innovation in the original materials, or the innovation of production methods, which are slowly iterated." Explosive nodes are still some time away. Wang Han said.
Beauty instrument can be said to be the fragrant food of the upstream financing of medical beauty in 2021, Feimo, Oxyfen, mesmooth, inFace, AMIRO Zongshang Technology, etc. are all such brands.
Behind this, under the east wind of new consumption, domestic brands are gradually rising. For a long time, imported beauty instruments have dominated the mainland market. This includes Clarisonic, an American beauty instrument brand that entered the mainland market in 2012, and Yameng, ReFa, Philips, dr.arrivo, Tripollar, Ulike, notime, FORED, Mujin, etc. that have entered the mainland market in the future.
"In recent years, the maturity of related technologies has made the small and portable home beauty instrument have professional beauty functions, which has won the welcome of young users." The investment director of an FA agency told Arterial Network that for example, the radiofrequency beauty device has quickly become popular because of its principle of shrinking when it uses collagen fibers in the dermis layer to produce contractions when reaching a certain temperature, which can bring users the effect of tightening skin and lightening wrinkles. Coupled with the hot flashes in the country, it has become a natural thing for capital to flock to beauty instruments.
Arterial Network searched for major beauty instrument brands on the Jingdong platform and found that some domestic brands have begun to sell well, such as Xiaomi, Jindao, Lauder Meiyan, Qucaotang, Xiaoxiong Electrical Appliances, COSBEAUTY Cosme, AMIRO Zongshang Technology, Femooi Feimo and other brands.
According to the statements of a number of investors, the industry is relatively optimistic about the size of the mainland beauty instrument market, and it is expected to reach 30 billion yuan within 3 years. In addition, the size of the mainland market in the world currently accounts for less than 10%, and the internal demand is still very large. According to the "2020-2026 China Beauty Instrument Industry Market Scale Survey and Development Trend Analysis Report" by Zhiyan Consulting, the current growth rate of beauty instrument products in mainland China is more than 20%.
From the perspective of market pattern, mainstream beauty instruments are mainly divided into five categories, namely ultrasound, microcurrent, radio frequency, spectroscopy, and oxygen injection. From the effect point of view, ultrasound is mainly for users to clean and nourish the face; microcurrent can expand the tension of muscle fibers, so as to achieve the effect of lifting; radiofrequency is to stimulate the fibroblasts of the dermis layer, thereby promoting the regeneration of collagen; the role of spectroscopy is to smooth fine lines and maintain skin vitality; oxygen injection can stimulate stem cell growth and division, accelerate wound healing, inflammation recovery, etc.
"Ultrasonic, spectroscopic, radio frequency, microcurrent these four have been relatively mature products, and oxygen injection is a new category in recent years, yet to be verified by the market." Said the above-mentioned FA investment director.
Of course, due to the low barrier to entry, fierce market competition and mixed fish, resulting in a large number of general effect or even inferior beauty instrument products pouring into the market. In October 2020, CCTV News "Weekly Quality Report" investigated the beauty instrument and found that among the 10 hot-selling beauty instruments, 6 products did not meet the relevant standards, which could easily lead to allergies and other problems; in addition, there were 2 products with the risk of low temperature burns.
At the beginning of 2021, the State Food and Drug Administration began to solicit opinions on the "Guiding Principles for the Classification and Definition of Radio frequency beauty products", which defined radio frequency beauty medical beauty products as the second and third types of medical devices, which means that the regulatory categories of radio frequency beauty device products may need to be adjusted. Once the industry norms and standards are introduced, the beauty instrument market may usher in a benign development.
Household small beauty instruments are mainly sold to the C-end, which is closer to the nature of cosmetics in terms of product nature, and the large-scale medical aesthetic equipment for the TOB end is still in its infancy in the mainland.
"The star medical beauty projects on the market, such as Thermage and Ouxing 4D, also belong to the optoelectronic category, with the characteristics of small damage and quick effect, the overall market size is tens of billions, and the upstream medical beauty optoelectronic equipment has long been in a two-level differentiation situation." Xiong Zhe, vice president of Qingtong Capital Investment, told Arterial Network that the world's top five manufacturers are European, American and Korean brands, with annual sales of 200-600 million US dollars, and their equipment is often millions and in short supply, with gross profits as high as 90%; while Chinese manufacturers are still assembling and producing cottage machines, the price is less than 1/10 of imported products, the lack of industry supervision has great security risks, and due to the lack of competitiveness of domestic products in core technologies such as energy stability and optical circuit structure design, A small number of manufacturers with R & D and production strength have also turned to the agency business, forming a chaotic competitive pattern of resources and channels.
The competition in the high-end product market is quite insufficient, and with the compliance of the medical aesthetic industry, the downstream demand will be further amplified, while the iteration speed of imported products is slow, and the price is expensive, which makes it difficult for most downstream institutions to afford. "In terms of functional parameters and Asian race of adaptability is insufficient, we believe that this gives domestic manufacturers the opportunity to overtake in the corner, after the long-term absence of high-end market, market prospects and returns have been continuously verified, relying on the mainland's strong supply chain system and basic research strength, the future will also achieve the world's head level and volume of Chinese manufacturers emerged." Xiong Zhe said.
For example, in high-end laser medical aesthetic equipment, the most technical difficulty is erbium laser, followed by emerald laser, ruby laser, picosecond laser, dye laser and so on. When performing skin management, different lasers are required for each skin part and different treatment and care needs, which is why there are more different types of laser equipment.
Nanjing Baifu, which was financed in 2021, mainly deepened the research and development and localization of high-end medical beauty laser technology, and has now achieved a breakthrough in the localization of some equipment. Nanjing Baifu has independently developed NDYAG Q-modulated laser, 1064nm long pulse laser, 755nm emerald long pulse laser, 2940nm erbium laser, 1064 &532nm 100 picosecond laser series products, and the relevant technical indicators have reached the leading level in China.
In terms of light medical aesthetic equipment, Hillhouse Invested Yaguang Medical has launched the "Water Baby Muscle" series of products, which is a non-invasive non-invasive percutaneous drug delivery medical device, which is a Class II medical device, and is also a non-invasive percutaneous drug delivery system that has obtained the NMPA registration certificate. Specifically, by applying an intermediate frequency pulse on the skin, the stratum corneum structure is temporarily disturbed, creating a reversible "electrical avia" and realizing drug introduction. An electric field applied to the cell increases the permeability of the cell membrane, infiltrating nutrients into the dermis layer.
"Domestic sound and optoelectronics this product is stepping on the general trend of domestic substitution, there are still many opportunities, but the key to winning or not depends on the price and the product itself." Song Gaoguang said.
(Source: Cinda Securities "Strong Supply and Demand, Ushering in the Golden Age of Medical Beauty")
To sum up, due to the relatively standardized industry supervision and the relative concentration of the industry, enterprises containing hyaluronic acid, botulinum toxin, and regenerative injection products will be the mainstay of the light medical beauty market, which also makes them the industry leader, and will continue to expand product lines and indications in the future, and drive the development of the industry through technological innovation.
The core of large-scale equipment enterprises such as sound and optoelectronics looks at prices and products, and domestic substitution is an opportunity. Consumer enterprises such as skin care brands and beauty instruments, continuous enhancement of product strength and strengthening of brand effects have become the key to whether they can stand out.
Trend: From contour beauty to state beauty, what will be the next medical beauty explosion?
Jin Xuekun believes that from the demand side, the trend of the medical aesthetic industry is from the beauty of the silhouette to the combination of the beauty of the state.
"In the earliest medical beauty, consumers want to spend money to make the nose, eyes and other parts become beautiful immediately, so the early, primary medical beauty is to be able to quickly solve the problem of contour beauty." But this kind of beauty is the most rudimentary, and entering the next stage, consumers are pursuing a combination of contour beauty and state beauty, a more advanced beauty. ”
The data can reflect this trend. According to the "2021 New Oxygen Medical Aesthetic Industry White Paper", the proportion of surgical consumers who mainly focus on contour beauty decreased from 34.2% in 2019 to 21.3% in 2021, and the proportion of non-surgical consumers who are mainly concerned about state beauty increased from 72.% in 2019 to 83.1% in 2021.
For example, the compact anti-aging project based on the operation of optoelectronic instruments has become the project with the largest consumption amount in 2021; in addition, the anti-wrinkle slimming consumption mainly based on botulinum toxin injection has become the project with the largest number of orders in 2021. From this, it can be seen that there is no shortage of good products in the upstream, and a large number of demands still need to be met.
Therefore, in the follow-up for a long period of time, investment institutions will continue to pay attention to the underlying technology, covering injections, machinery and equipment to material synthesis technology, microbial fermentation technology, tool platform and other fields of high-quality targets.
However, there are technical and technological barriers in the upstream of medical beauty, and it is not realistic to achieve overtaking in curves in the short term. Taking hyaluronic acid as an example, although the mainland is the largest raw material for hyaluronic acid, there is still a certain distance compared with international counterparts in high-end products. This is because the production of hyaluronic acid requires not only understanding biological fermentation technology such as strain screening, fermentation formula conditions and process control, but also mastering the technology of crosslinking related materials science and synthesis, which requires continuous iteration and accumulation.
Specific to where is the breakthrough point in the material category?
Jin Xuekun believes that there are three main aspects: First, the combination treatment plan, "the treatment plan must be combined in the future, for example, topical treatment methods and injection treatment methods can be combined to do." "The second is full management. The third is to strengthen interdisciplinary application.
One is the cross-life cycle of materials, that is, the material is not popular for a short time, but can be popular for ten years or more; the second is interdisciplinary materials, such as the most well-known hyaluronic acid, is an interdisciplinary material; the third is cross-industry materials, "the large category of materials must be crossed, otherwise it will not be a big material, it may be popular for a period of time." "Fourth, the material should have the ductility of the indications, for example, botulinum toxin can be used to remove wrinkles, but also can be used to treat facial muscle spasms.
From this dimension, collagen and botulinum toxin will be the next investment hotspot. Collagen technology is developing, and humanoid and other types of collagen have better regeneration and filling effects, which will lead the injection filling to gradually enter the regeneration era. As an irreplaceable variety, botulinum toxin and new botulinum based on bioengineering are also a good investment point.
In addition, Mingfeng Capital believes that the large-scale innovation in the field of materials and technology in the future may also occur in the following aspects:
1. Biomaterials based on gene editing may change the existing pattern of filled products.
2, synthetic biology will greatly change the cosmetic raw material market.
3. Protein technology in the innovative pharmaceutical industry is applied to the field of medical aesthetics.
Of course, different application scenarios and demands also have different requirements for materials and related technologies, which requires medical aesthetic innovation companies to continue to explore, accumulate, and even face the risk of failure.
For the leading enterprises that have come out of the industry, such as Bloomage Biology, Aimeike, Huadong Pharmaceutical, etc., in addition to continuing to attach importance to research and development and internal innovation, it is also necessary to continue to grow bigger and stronger through the acquisition and integration of the industry like the global medical beauty giant Allergan, so as to bring greater imagination space for its own growth.
Next, a large amount of investment in the medical aesthetic industry will continue to focus on the upstream. In addition, with the tightening of regulatory policies, the middle and lower reaches of medical aesthetics will become more and more standardized, which is bound to drive the expansion of the upstream market of the industry.
When technology continues to innovate and high-quality products are frequently produced, the medical aesthetic industry will benefit more people at lower prices and better results. As the famous science fiction writer Arthur M. According to C. Clarke, any technology that is advanced enough is like magic transforming the world.
Medical beauty is the magic that makes people more beautiful.
Special Thanks:
Jin Xuekun, founding partner of Mingfeng Capital
Partner of Mingfeng Capital Wang Zhen
Northern Lights Venture Partners Song Gaoguang
Vice President of Qingtong Capital Investment Xiong Zhe
(The above rankings are in no particular order, at the request of the interviewer, Wang Han is a pseudonym)