In today's world, wealth is another kind of "country", which rises and falls, but witnesses the surging tide of the times. With the birth of many wealth myths, we see the pinnacle of everything that can be reached under the fierce meeting and ambition.
On March 25, the Hurun Research Institute released the "2024 Hurun Global Rich List", and Zhong Huijuan, the head of Jiangsu Haosen Pharmaceutical, was among them with 53 billion.
● Zhong Huijuan
Dating back to 4 years ago, Zhong Huijuan won the champion of the "2020 Hurun Global Self-Made Woman Rich List" with a net worth of 106 billion yuan.
● Source: "2020 Hurun Global Self-Made Women Rich List"
Compared with the top position, what is even more amazing is the increase in her wealth - on the list in 2019, Zhong Huijuan was only 24 billion, and only a year later, her wealth has exceeded 100 billion, which means that the "first sister of medicine" who has risen at an astonishing speed earns 200 million a day.
Although Zhong Huijuan's net worth has fluctuated in recent years, in the medical industry, the miracle she has created has become a model worth exploring for cross-border people.
1. Change the "track"
Zhong Huijuan was one of the first batch of college students to be admitted after the resumption of the college entrance examination in China in 1977, when the land of China was in ruins and waiting to be rebuilt, and the upsurge of knowledge to change the fate of the country was surging, but the admission rate of universities was extremely low at that time, with a total of 5.73 million candidates that year, and only 270,000 were finally admitted, with an acceptance rate of only 4.7%.
Xuzhou Normal University, where Zhong Huijuan studied, was the first undergraduate university born in northern Jiangsu, and later merged with other institutions to upgrade to "Jiangsu Normal University".
● Xuzhou Normal University
When she graduated from university, Zhong Huijuan was only 21 years old and was assigned to Lianyungang Yan'an Middle School as a chemistry teacher.
At that time, her boyfriend, Sun Piaoyang, who was three years older than her, had just graduated from China Pharmaceutical University, known as the "Huangpu of Medicine", majoring in chemistry and pharmacy, and became an ordinary technician in Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory.
● Sun Piaoyang
At that time, Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory had almost no original brands of its own, and its main revenue came from processing APIs for large factories.
In 1990, due to many constraints, the deteriorating Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory was in trouble.
Sun Piaoyang, who was 32 years old at the time, was appointed as the factory director.
If you want to save the precarious pharmaceutical factory, you can only break the kettle and fight against the water. He took a fancy to an anti-tumor injection codenamed "VP16" on the market, so he combined with the market demand at that time, produced the injection into a soft capsule product, and vigorously promoted it.
Such an innovative move has enabled Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory to move from the provincial region to the national market. After this battle, Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory came back to life.
At that time, Sun Piaoyang knew that temporary success could not make the pharmaceutical factory stabilize its foothold in the era of rapid economic development. ”
So, in the second year, Sun Piaoyang, who judged the situation, resolutely spent 1.2 million yuan to acquire the patent rights of the new anti-cancer drug ifosfamide developed by the Institute of Pharmaceutical Research of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and built a scientific research building, focusing on research and development.
● Sun Piaoyang
Such a decision shocked everyone: this huge amount of money is almost the total income of Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory for a whole year, and if it fails, the company will pay a great price.
In the face of widespread skepticism and pessimism from top to bottom, Sun Piaoyang tried his best to defy public opinion:
"You don't have the technology, your fate is in someone else's hands. We have to take our destiny into our own hands. ”
In those years when anti-cancer drugs were extremely scarce, this new drug promoted Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory to become a leading enterprise in the research and development of anti-cancer drugs in China, and Sun Piaoyang also became the first generation of expert entrepreneurs in China's pharmaceutical industry.
Later, under his leadership, Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory played triumphantly all the way, and its revenue exceeded 100 million yuan in 1996.
However, because he was unwilling to be a senior "worker" all the time, in the context of a huge market vacancy in the pharmaceutical industry at that time, Sun Piaoyang aimed at the opportunity and joined forces with a Hong Kong investor in 1995 to establish a new company, Haosen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.
● Lianyungang Haosen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. was established in 1995
When the company was about to set sail, the Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory he was at the helm at that time was on the rise, and Sun Piaoyang was lacking in skills, so he hoped that his wife could manage the new company on his behalf.
Yan'an Middle School (now Lianyungang Xinhai Experimental Middle School), where Zhong Huijuan worked, was the leading middle school in the local area and a nationally renowned top junior high school education school.
In order to help her husband, after 14 years of deep cultivation in the education industry, Zhong Huijuan smashed her "iron rice bowl" with her own hands.
Her choice caused an uproar in the circle of relatives and friends at that time: they all said that interlacing is like separating mountains, giving up work in the system of drought and flood protection, and going to an industry with high technical barriers to open up another territory, which is unbelievable in the eyes of many people.
Hesitation and entanglement are not without it, Zhong Huijuan has also estimated all kinds of uncertainties and huge risks again and again in the repeated trade-offs for many days before.
In the end, she still went into battle "shirtless", like a warrior, determined to go to the unpredictable battlefield of life and death.
What Sun Piaoyang didn't expect was that many years later, under the leadership of his wife, this "pocket" company would grow into a giant "aircraft carrier" in China's pharmaceutical industry.
2. Shoot the "first shot"
In order to get the company on the right track as soon as possible, Zhong Huijuan took the factory as her home and went all out.
When she used to teach, she had a strong theoretical foundation and was comfortable in teaching, but when she arrived in a completely unfamiliar field, she found that there were walls of copper and iron in front of her.
Pharmaceutical companies, first of all, take the product "Qingtian", and behind the product is technology is king.
● For pharmaceutical companies, technology is king
Although Zhong Huijuan has led students to do countless chemical experiments before, it is obviously very different from producing drugs used to treat diseases and save people.
And her husband Sun Piaoyang can't do everything because he is in charge of Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory, and because he can't hire top technical talents, Zhong Huijuan can only start from scratch.
She first apprenticed to experienced old experts, humbly sought advice, and after completing her studies, she gave full play to her expertise in teaching and educating people, and personally trained technicians.
During that time, Zhong Huijuan was the most tormented time: nominally the vice president of the group, but in the early days of the business, in order to save costs, more funds were used to purchase more advanced equipment, to ensure the high precision of production and research, Zhong Huijuan squeezed into the dilapidated bungalow office, took the bus to and from work every day, and later in order to develop a new drug as soon as possible, she simply lived in the factory for a long time, got up early and worked with technical personnel to engage in research and development.
As a result, those scenes of the night battle once again "reproduced" the "tragedy" of her all-night preparation for the college entrance examination.
In addition to technical problems, she also has to face many difficult management problems independently.
Through continuous reading and "charging", and practical exploration, she has learned a lot of advanced methods, coupled with some experience accumulated in the original teaching, so that she can achieve a balance of rigidity and softness in the management process, perseverance and decisiveness in major matters, democratic and open in small matters, fully respect the innovative ideas of employees, and give employees space for growth and development.
Gradually, Zhong Huijuan became the most popular senior management of the company, and she also cultivated a group of strong and loyal backbone employees for the company.
Gome CEO Du Juan once expressed his feelings as a female manager:
"When people's potential is smooth sailing, they don't know it, but if you can adjust your mentality, your potential can be stimulated, and you can go well. ”
In the early days of the grass-roots creation, because there was no market, Zhong Huijuan led a group of people to go from north to south to develop the market.
In the 90s of the 20th century, domestic pharmaceutical companies generally had the problem of insufficient technology, capital and R&D capabilities, and more than 90% of the Western drugs produced by the pharmaceutical industry were generics.
In the general environment at that time, Zhong Huijuan also knew that her company could not solve all the industry problems in a short period of time, so like most domestic pharmaceutical factories, Zhong Huijuan also took "imitation" as the goal of Haosen's initial drawing.
Adhering to the spirit of hardship and hard work, Zhong Huijuan and the researchers worked hard in the laboratory for three months, successfully completed the transformation of the new dosage form of cephalexin tablets, and named the new product "Meifeng".
● Haosen's first fist product, Meifeng (cephalexin sustained-release tablets)
In April 1997, "Meifeng", the exclusive antibiotic produced in China, was a big hit as soon as it was launched.
As Haosen's first fist product, "Meifeng" sales reached 30 million yuan that year, in the situation of being surrounded and suppressed by foreign imported drugs, Haosen successfully fired the first shot of "imitation" drugs, and was recognized as a "national new product" by the State Economic and Trade Commission.
This undoubtedly gave great confidence and encouragement to the research and development of Sinopharm at that time: it turned out that our country could also develop its own cephalosporin antibiotics, which were even better than those of foreign countries, and the price was cheaper.
The blockbuster success of "Meifeng" has made the "Haosen Pharmaceutical" led by Zhong Huijuan step into the public eye, and also made this little-known small pharmaceutical company among the first-class drug research ranks.
From the former "preaching and receiving karma to solve doubts", to using medicine to help the world and prospering herself, Zhong Huijuan has completed a gorgeous transformation.
3. "He's only 20 years old, and he just wants to live." ”
Through the product "Meifeng", Haosen makes tens of millions of yuan a year, but Zhong Huijuan is not satisfied with this, for pharmaceutical companies in the whirlpool of fierce competition, "can die at any time", so she must "survive step by step".
At that time, the research and development of oncology drugs in China was relatively lagging behind, and most of the effective anti-tumor chemotherapy drugs were very harmful to the body, so many patients often died of resentment because they could not pay for the expensive imported special drugs.
Zhong Huijuan considered that since the current era of "generic drugs", why can't it be done to the extreme, so as not only to enhance the viability of the enterprise, but more importantly, to benefit the majority of patients suffering from cancer.
Speaking of which, we have to mention the concept of "first generic drug", which refers to the first generic drug after the expiration of new drug patent protection, which has a pricing advantage and considerable profits, but does not need to bear excessive R&D risks.
At that time, the domestic enterprises with the qualification of "first generic drug" were divided by the "group of heroes", and Haosen was always able to look accurately and seize the opportunity.
In 1999, Gaynor (vinorelbine tartrate for injection) launched by Haosen was approved for marketing, which won the first place in the field of high-incidence tumors such as non-small cell lung cancer and breast cancer, and became an important milestone in the development of anti-tumor drugs in China.
In 2000 and 2001, Nobin (zolpidem tartrate tablets) and Olannine (olanzapine tablets) were also approved for marketing, which established Haosen's leading position in the central nervous system.
In 2003, Haosen Pharmaceutical broke into the camp of the top 100 pharmaceutical enterprises in China and became a shocking and eye-catching "dark horse" in the industry.
What made Haosen further famous was the birth of its self-developed chronic myelogenous leukemia drug - "Xinwei".
A few years ago, the popular movie "I Am Not the God of Medicine" has a sky-high price drug for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia - Gleevec (called "Glenin" in the movie), which was once compared by Time Magazine to "a bullet shot at cancer", but the price of Gleevec produced by Novartis in Germany was once as high as 23,500 yuan per box, plus import tariffs and intermediate circulation costs, the price of each box in the mainland reached 40,000 yuan, and many patients could not afford it even if they went bankrupt.
● A patient who was overwhelmed by sky-high prices of medicine / Image source: "I am not the god of medicine"
In the movie, Cheng Yong, who became a defendant for purchasing generic drugs in India for leukemia patients, said in court: "Looking at these patients, I feel sad, they can't afford to eat imported sky-high drugs, so they can only wait for death, or even suicide." However, I believe that it will get better and better in the future, and I hope that this day will come sooner. ”
● Cheng Yong's words in court/Image source: "I Am Not the God of Medicine"
In order to allow leukemia patients to use more cost-effective and reliable drugs, Zhong Huijuan has invested in recruiting talents from medical universities and medical universities across the country to carry out vigorous research and development.
In 2013, Xinwei was pushed to the market in the call for difficult research and development of tumor drugs at that time, and the response was strong, and Xinwei even had fewer side effects than Gleevec, but the price was only 623 yuan compared with the imported drugs that were tens of thousands of dollars at that time.
Zhong Huijuan lived up to expectations and finally allowed the Chinese people to use safer and more affordable anti-tumor drugs.
The so-called "those who win the hearts of the people win the world", Zhong Huijuan not only seeks the well-being of all beings in the world, but also achieves the rapid progress of the enterprise.
The success of "Xinwei" has enabled Haosen to achieve a new breakthrough in history, and the annual sales of this drug alone have reached 210 million yuan.
Since then, Haosen's various generic drugs will be very popular as soon as they enter the market, and Haosen has also undertaken the mission of saving millions of people from fire and water.
To this day, Zhong Huijuan still remembers the deafening line in "I Am Not the God of Medicine":
"He's only 20 years old, he just wants to live. ”
● Image source: "I Am Not the God of Medicine"
4. Innovators win
Although generic drugs can bring a lot of profits to a pharmaceutical company, in the field of medical technology, they can never become the real leader, just like China's manufacturing industry, from OEM to ODM, and then to OBM, relying on independent research and development, and finally out of a broad road.
Therefore, at the beginning of the business, Zhong Huijuan formulated the development strategy of "imitation first and then innovation" and took the road of "combination of imitation and innovation", and gradually transformed into an innovative R&D-driven pharmaceutical company after its position in the industry was stable.
There is a well-known "double ten law" in the pharmaceutical industry, that is, the advent of an innovative drug often takes 10 years and invests at least 1 billion US dollars, which is a long cycle and risky.
Global biopharma companies like AstraZeneca, based in the United Kingdom, can wipe off 15% of their market value in a single day – costing the company an estimated £10 billion in losses after news of a failed clinical trial.
However, in order to allow patients to use new drugs with more efficacy, Zhong Huijuan is engaged in the research and development of new products at any cost, even though the road to research and development is difficult and difficult.
● Lianyungang Research Institute of Hexion Pharmaceutical
As we all know, the domestic pharmaceutical industry is developing rapidly, and by the end of 2020, there are nearly 8,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers in the country.
In order to win more cutting-edge talents, Zhong Huijuan went to almost all the pharmaceutical and medical universities in China to recruit talents; as for various large and medium-sized talent recruitment fairs, Zhong Huijuan was even more present on the scene and personally selected talents.
In addition, she has also established long-term cooperative relations with well-known pharmaceutical research institutions at home and abroad, maintained close contact with hospital organizations and various academic societies around the world, and participated in various academic activities all year round to collect market information extensively.
Although the process of research and development often failed, she repeated it again and again.
In May 2014, Melinda (morpholinoconidazole sodium chloride injection) was successfully launched, which is the first nitroimidazole anti-infective drug with completely independent intellectual property rights in mainland China, marking a major breakthrough in the development strategy of "from imitation to innovation".
In just 10 years, Zhong Huijuan has developed more than 30 national new drugs such as antibiotics, anti-tumors, psychotropics, endocrine, and digestive systems, of which 6 products have been jointly recognized as "national key new products" by five ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Hurun Wealth List once compared previous lists and concluded: "In the past, the elements of wealth creation were integrity first, pragmatism second, and diligence third; now innovation is first, resource integration is second, and speed is third." ”
Combining the spirit of innovation with the company's products, Haosen has created a surprising "Haosen speed" with its peers.
This company, which initially had only more than 10 employees and 1 product, even surpassed Kweichow Moutai, which is known as the "A-share cash cow", when Haosen merged into Hansoh Pharmaceutical in 2019.
5. Create a pharmaceutical landscape
Haosen Pharmaceutical not only stirs up a storm in the domestic pharmaceutical industry, but also is committed to the expansion of overseas markets.
With the joint efforts of Zhong Huijuan and all colleagues, the company's API workshop successfully passed the US FDA certification in October 2003 with the excellent results of "zero defect", so that Haosen's products successfully entered the European and American markets, and created millions of dollars in foreign exchange income in 2004 alone.
● Haosen Pharmaceutical has passed the US FDA certification with "zero defect".
At the same time that Zhong Huijuan led Haosen to develop rapidly, her husband Sun Piaoyang also changed the name of Lianyungang Pharmaceutical Factory to Hengrui Pharmaceutical through a series of restructuring and share reform, and then listed on the A-share market, and Sun Piaoyang became the actual controller of Hengrui Pharmaceutical.
● Hengrui Pharmaceutical
Due to the partnership between Zhong Huijuan and Sun Piaoyang, the establishment of Haosen originated from Sun Piaoyang's promotion, Haosen and Hengrui are related to each other in equity, and were once called "shadow" companies.
In order to completely get rid of the entanglement between the two companies, Zhong Huijuan focused on cleaning up the equity of Haosen, and through restructuring, successively introduced institutional investors such as Hillhouse Capital, so that Jiangsu Haosen became an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Hansoh Pharmaceutical.
This has also become a huge and vivid "metaphor", symbolizing Zhong Huijuan, who has benefited from her husband's cultivation and assistance, putting aside the labels of "Sun Piaoyang's wife" and "Hengrui Pharmaceutical's proprietor", not only completing the seemingly unclear cutting of interests, but also finally realizing the reshaping of self-worth.
In fact, this "butterfly change" began to occur more than 20 years ago, from the moment she gently flapped her "wings".
On June 14, 2019, Zhong Huijuan, who has worked hard in China's pharmaceutical industry for more than 20 years, led Hansoh Pharmaceutical to list in Hong Kong, and the stock price soared by nearly 37% on the same day, winning the first share of pharmaceutical stocks on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.
● Zhong Huijuan attended the bell ringing ceremony of Hexion Pharmaceutical's listing
Overseas media have also focused on Ms. Zhong Huijuan, the founder of Haosen Pharmaceutical. Bloomberg published a story titled "Middle School Chemistry Teacher Promoted to Pharmaceutical Billionaire".
In 2020, on the list of the world's richest people, Zhong Huijuan and her husband Sun Piaoyang's total net worth reached nearly 200 billion yuan, tied for fourth place with Li Ka-shing. In the same year, Zhong Huijuan also topped the Forbes "China Medical and Health Rich List".
● In 2020, Zhong Huijuan topped the Forbes "China Medical and Health Rich List".
In Hurun's words, "Sun Piaoyang and Zhong Huijuan made history by becoming the first couple to create an independent company with a market value of tens of billions of dollars." As a result, they are praised as the "Condor Heroes" in today's Chinese business community.
● Zhong Huijuan and Sun Piaoyang
Today, Hansoh Pharmaceutical is one of the largest R&D-driven pharmaceutical companies in China.
They produce major drugs in the therapeutic areas with huge clinical needs and gaps, distributed in the six major fields of central nervous system, anti-tumor, anti-infection, diabetes, digestive tract and cardiovascular, and have been the first among Chinese psychiatric pharmaceutical companies, and have won the first place in sales for four consecutive years.
As the "bull's ear" in China's pharmaceutical field, although Zhong Huijuan has wealth beyond the reach of ordinary people, she has always maintained a low-key style, rarely accepts media interviews, and more often, she appears in laboratories, factory workshops, hospital beds, and every time she is needed.
● Zhong Huijuan inspected the work
Now, 28 years have passed, and this former middle school teacher has bravely entered the "forbidden area" and driven for a long time, not only creating a medical map that highlights the power of Chinese women, but also moistening all things and all living beings.
She occasionally thinks of the years when she was coaching, often accompanied by the starlight, and when she resolutely embarked on the "road less traveled", the changed fate extended infinitely farther away......
Someone said: "The road of life is the stave of life, and everyone in the world is composing the song of life with their own actions." Some people have played the strongest note of the times with the heart of entrepreneurship, and some people have played their own long-term hatred song with the note of tears. ”
Zhong Huijuan undoubtedly belongs to the former.
All the forces that promote the progress of society will eventually merge into the torrent of history, but when the stars of human beings shine, it is the shining moment when they leap into the ocean of life again and again, fight the wind and waves, and stand bravely at the head of the tide. / Buckwheat green