Text/Xinna
Editor / Wang Xiao
Photo/unsplash
"I believe in hyaluronic acid more than marriage because it works every time." The words of the heroine of the American drama "Sex and the City" are becoming a portrayal of more and more Chinese urban women. At the mall, at the gym, or at a party with friends, the sound of discussing which hyaluronic acid product to inject will come from time to time.
"Before taking wedding photos, I had to do hyaluronic acid in advance so that my skin would look better." Wang Mu (pseudonym) has begun to plan for next year's wedding, in addition to traditional items such as wedding dresses and floral arrangements, she also needs medical beauty.
Hyaluronic acid is like skin care products, entering more and more people's daily consumption, and the domestic hyaluronic acid two giants Bloomage Bio (688363. SH) and 300896.SZ are standing at a crossroads at this point, and their business models are like a stretched track, drifting away. The former becomes more like a FMCG company, and the latter is more like a medical device company.
According to the 2021 financial report data released by the two companies in March 2022, Bloomage Biologics' main business has changed from hyaluronic acid raw materials to functional skin care products, and its revenue has accounted for more than two-thirds of the total revenue. Approximately 99% of Aimek's operating income comes from skin injection products.
Two listed companies that have competed in the same field in the field of hyaluronic acid are laying out future development along different business models, and they also have problems that need to be solved. Bloomage needs to find a balance between high sales expenses and revenue, and Aimeike needs to build another successful product to prove itself.
Has the product "moat" been built?
Since the first hyaluronic acid was listed in China, for more than a decade, hyaluronic acid is appearing in a variety of ways, such as panda needles and water light needles. The appearance of tearing flowers whistles, the core of these products is still hyaluronic acid.
Hyaluronic acid, scientific name hyaluronic acid. This is a self-owned ingredient of the human body, which belongs to the straight-chain polysaccharide, which is good in water absorption and viscoelasticity. Because it belongs to the body's own ingredients, it rarely produces a rejection reaction, and it can improve the skin and eliminate wrinkles, becoming the most advanced medical aesthetic material.
According to the incomplete statistics of "Finance and Economics, Great Health", the market has approved more than 40 types of class III hyaluronic acid fillers for medical devices, covering different types such as large/medium/small molecules, non-crosslinked/micro-crosslinking/single-phase crosslinking/biphasic crosslinking, and hemp-containing/non-hemp-containing.
After injection, the pleasing degree of the skin is directly related to the size of hyaluronic acid molecules and the degree of crosslinking. The larger the molecular weight, the higher the degree of crosslinking, the higher the viscosity of the hardness, and it is not easy to degrade. On the contrary, it is soft and easy to degrade.
A person in charge who has many years of operating experience in large chain medical beauty institutions observed that most hyaluronic acid manufacturers will launch multiple products, which correspond to two categories as a whole, one is soft, mainly filled, and the other is harder, mainly for shaping.
Most hyaluronic acid products on the market now use crosslinkers, which measure the "moat" width of hyaluronic acid products. Qi Zuoliang, former president of the Plastic Surgery Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, explained that differences in crosslinking ability can lead to different properties and biological characteristics of products.
That is, it is not difficult to make a hyaluronic acid product, and there can be ready-made raw materials and simple technology. However, as a person in the medical aesthetic industry commented, if you want to achieve good results, it is indeed a test of a company's underlying research and development capabilities.
If you do not consider the differences in injection techniques of different doctors, it is most difficult to achieve by filling the hyaluronic acid products on the face just right, and the skin is smooth and full without a silicone feeling.
Back to Bloomage Bio and Aimeco's hyaluronic acid products, the former has not been able to break through better crosslinking technology, and the latter cleverly avoids this threshold.
The above-mentioned medical beauty industry sources said that Bloomage Bio's hyaluronic acid products generally feedback is hard, and it is currently more used in shaping, filling the chin and nose.
Aimek's sodium hyaluronate compound solution for injection, also known as Hi Body, is a small molecule, non-crosslinked hyaluronic acid as the core, while adding a variety of nutrients.
Hi-Body bypasses the difficulty of crosslinking technology. Its most central label is the only injectable beauty product approved for the improvement of neck wrinkles.
The above-mentioned medical beauty industry people believe that from the currently public information, it is impossible to judge how many core technologies there are in this product, but from the perspective of market feedback, this must be a relatively successful product.
Such a "shortcut" is also seen by Bloomage Bio. An insider said that the company is also laying out the research and development of related products, such as crosslinking hyaluronic acid molecules with optoelectronic technology, and regenerative injection products similar to Aimek. But he also couldn't say how long the process would take.
It's not easy to tear off the label
As two members of the "Three Musketeers" of hyaluronic acid, the commercial route of Amaire and Bloomage Bio is now completely different, which can be seen from the financial report data disclosed by the two companies.
Three injections to remove neck wrinkles, more than 6,000 yuan, the promised time limit is two years. Neck wrinkle repair products are guns in the hands of amy guests. It obtained three types of registration certificates more than five years ago and entered the market in the first half of 2017, which is the only one.
Emekser injection beauty products are divided into two categories, one is gel and the other is solution. There are only two products, and the Hi Body is one.
From 2017 to 2019, the data released shows that the revenue of Hi Ti has risen by about six times. In 2019, its revenue has accounted for about 99% of the overall revenue of the solution class, and it can be said that the revenue of the entire solution project is supported by the income of the hi body.
In 2020 alone, the overall sales of Aimeike solution products exceeded 1.2 million, of which more than 90% of the products were Hi Body. From this calculation, in the four years since 2017, the overall sales volume of Hi Body has increased by about nine times, which is a well-deserved explosive product.
The proportion of solution injection product revenue in total revenue has increased from about 20% in 2017 to more than 70% in 2021. This also makes Hi Body a large category supporting the revenue of Aimek.
Hi Body was successful as a product. "It's been on the market for several years, and sales have been rising dramatically, which is telling the story." Evaluation by a relevant person in charge of a large medical beauty chain institution.
The success of the above-mentioned medical beauty industry people to review the hi body is, in the final analysis, effectively solve the needs of beauty seekers.
In the early days, there were many cases of over-range use of injectable products, and in medical aesthetic institutions, doctors sometimes appropriately expanded the indications of the product, such as using fillers approved for use on the face and using them on the lips or neck. However, the neck skin is thin, hyaluronic acid products are mostly macromolecules, and transposition injection filling will appear uneven and nodules, so it is not easy to fill with other products.
At this time, the hi body enters the market, and coincides with the tightening of the policy, and each injection product must be injected in strict accordance with the indications, giving the hi body an excellent window period to occupy the market.
Bloomage's regret is that there is no such explosive product. Previously, Bloomage Bio's label was a raw material company, but now it wants to tear off this label.
This is not unrelated to the long-term pressure on Bloomage's raw material business. On the one hand, the unit price of hyaluronic acid sales began to decline, bloomage previous prospectus disclosed that from 2017 to 2019, the sales unit price of injection grade hyaluronic acid raw material products fell from 122.62 yuan / g to 111.69 yuan / g, an average annual decline of about 5%; on the other hand, the gross profit margin of raw material products also declined.
According to the data of Bloomage Biotech's 2021 annual report, the raw material business, which accounted for nearly half of the main business in 2017, has shrunk to 26.73% of the existing main business income.
Fortunately, bloomage's functional skin care business revenue reached 3.319 billion yuan in 2021, accounting for 51.15% of the company's main business income. This business continues to grow.
This is the result of Bloomage's two-year transformation. The revenue share of functional skin care products increased from 22.98% in 2018 to more than half in 2021, replacing the raw material business and becoming the pillar of the company's revenue.
A pharmaceutical industry analyst concluded that Bloomage Biology is more like the layout of the whole industry chain, from upstream raw material manufacturing to midstream pharmaceutical equipment, cosmetics and food; Aimeike is more focused, focusing on the middle of the industrial chain, especially pharmaceutical and equipment products.
One like a pharmaceutical company, one like FMCG
From 2017 to 2021, the gross profit margin of sales of Aimek and Bloomage Biotech has remained at a high level. Even in the shadow of the new crown epidemic, the gross profit margin of Aimek in 2021 exceeded 93%.
But the net profit margin on sales is very different. Aimek's net profit margin rose from about 34% in 2017 to more than 66% in 2021, nearly doubling. Bloomage Biotech's figure in 2021 is only 15.67%.
The gap is in the cost of sales. In 2021, Bloomage Bio's sales fees will be about 2.44 billion yuan, and the sales fees of Aimeike will be 156 million yuan. The former's selling expense ratio has grown by almost 50% by 2021.
For Bloomage Biotech, cutting into the field of functional skin care products or food means that continuous brand exposure is more needed. "Aimeike is more like a pharmaceutical company, and Bloomage Bio is more like a FMCG company." The aforementioned pharmaceutical industry analyst said.
From the current product matrix of Bloomage Biology, in addition to cosmetics, food, there are other FMCG products such as pet food. The above-mentioned Bloomage Bio insider said, "There are many companies in other industries that take the initiative to talk about cooperation, such as Jasper", Bloomage Bio hopes to let the market understand the infinite possibilities of hyaluronic acid.
The business behind it is obvious. As the world's largest producer of hyaluronic acid raw materials, the more products with hyaluronic acid elements, the more revenue items blooming by Bloomage Bio, which is Bloomage Bio's ambition to lay out the whole industry chain of hyaluronic acid.
According to the data of the Prospective Industry Research Institute, in the global hyaluronic acid raw material market in 2020, Bloomage Bio's sales accounted for 43%.
Bloomage's plate is getting bigger and bigger, and the question is also followed - whether the continuous high investment in sales expenses can bring corresponding profit returns will become the test of Bloomage Biology in the next two to three years.
"In the end, it's the product itself." The above-mentioned pharmaceutical industry analysts analyzed that consumers look at whether the product has an effect and how good the quality is.
Cosmetics or foods that have been launched from Bloomage Have not yet formed their own strong enough barriers. For example, the 10 yuan bottle of hyaluronic acid water brand "Water Muscle Spring" is called "IQ tax" by some netizens, which brings harm to the brand to a certain extent.
Emek also has its own labels that she wants to tear off. It wants to launch another successful product to prove its strength. Therefore, a dermal filler containing L-lactic acid, glycol copolymer microspheres, etc., is highly expected. This product activates its own collagen and is a regenerative solution product.
However, when this product is launched in China in the second half of 2021, consumers already have products from other companies that can compare similar functions, such as "child face needle" and "girl needle". The same is a regenerative injection, almost the same period of approval, the three products inevitably short contact.
Qi Zuoliang explained that the concept of regeneration is now popular, and after injection, it can stimulate local tissue regeneration. There are two main types of this technology, one is stem cells, which have not yet been approved. Existing regenerative products are mainly to stimulate the local skin to cause inflammation, stimulate skin tissue to secrete cells or collagen, produce a protective effect, and thus repair. "At present, there are no obvious adverse reactions, and whether it is effective or not needs long-term observation."
In the interest of Aimec, there is still room for improvement in the penetration rate of Hi Body, and there is at least 2-5 years of compliance regulatory exclusivity. According to the analysis of the above-mentioned medical beauty industry, the success of HiTi in the market will make most companies automatically withdraw from this track, unless there is really a completely innovative product, which is difficult.
Public information shows that there are still no similar products submitted to the Food and Drug Administration for declaration. This means that for at least two years, HiTi will contribute high returns to Aimeike.
The decision of the product occupies the strength of the market. Whether it is Aimeike or Bloomage Biology, it is difficult to build a long-term and solid "moat" between heavy and light.