In life, what you do, always want to be seen and remembered by the times. Zhao Tao came from a family of doctors, and he remembered that his grandfather saved seven lives, and he and his father Zhao Buchang also saved many people as doctors.
Buchang Pharmaceutical, founded by Zhao's father and son, has developed products such as "Buchang Brain Heart", which is one of the largest sales drugs in the field of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases in China, and has benefited a wide range. Buchang Pharmaceutical has also entered the ranks of the 10 billion pharmaceutical empire.
Time is a wonderful thing. In August 2003, Business Magazine interviewed Zhao Buchang. At that time, Buchang Pharmaceutical had been in the Chinese pharmaceutical market for ten years, and the sales of "Buchang Brain and Heart" had reached 600 million yuan that year.
Today, Zhao Buchang, who is nearly 80 years old, drives a caravan to inspect the first-line market all year round; Zhao Tao, as chairman, leads Buchang's revenue in 2015 to exceed 11.65 billion yuan.
Famous doctors, scholars, Confucian businessmen, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs... Zhao Tao has many roles. He is reluctant to dwell too much on the commercial success of buchang, arguing that its significance is weaker than social responsibility. The details he prefers to mention are —
One summer 28 years ago, a not-so-beautiful postcard was sent from Xi'an Medical University to the family building of Xianyang Municipal Staff Hospital, and the postcard was hand-painted with a sketch representing acupuncture, next to a line of vigorous handwriting: "One day, the world will remember it!" This postcard was sent to his father Zhao Buchang, who is about to graduate from college, and he is expressing his vision of Chinese medicine to the world in a special way.
At that time, the young Chinese medicine doctor who relied on a "divine needle" to move the rivers and lakes was holding the belief of "hanging pot to save the world, the world of economics" to practice medicine and do business, and at the same time injected 4.0 industrial civilization, marketing explosive thinking, layout base integration industrial chain, capital operation into the traditional Chinese medicine pharmaceutical field, and explored how to modernize and internationalize a traditional Chinese medicine enterprise.
Medicine and excellence are business, and business and excellence are compassionate.
At the end of the day, we're going to tell a business story where the heart of a healer is the core.
"Chinese Needle"
In the vine-filled courtyard of Beijing's Guigong Mansion, Zhao Tao said he had not talked about making money for ten years. He mentioned several articles he had devoted himself to new industrial civilization, family inheritance and philanthropy, and eagerly repeatedly asked: "Have you read the articles?" "That's what I want to say most right now."
After all, making money is really not difficult for this famous doctor who became famous and earned $900,000 in three months. Zhao Tao's earlier "business" experience can be traced back to his student days. During college, he worked as a part-time photographer, sold coffee, and even pounded game consoles.
Zhao Tao recalled that year, only because "that time, I justified the name of Chinese medicine overseas!" ”
Turn the hour hand back to the distant year of 1992. At that time, after the intensive research of Zhao Buchang and Zhao Tao's father and son, the "medicine gas needle" technology used to treat patients with cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases was already very famous in China. In the winter of this year, Zhao's father and son were invited to Singapore to participate in the "International Academic Symposium on Traditional Chinese Medicine and Acupuncture to the World", during which the organizers specially arranged a special event for Zhao's father and son to perform acupuncture treatment for patients with cerebral stroke paralysis on the spot.
At that time, a Singaporean woman named Liu Yamei, over sixty years old, had been paralyzed for six years, and her legs could not move at all. Through clinical diagnosis, Zhao's father and son determined that Liu Yamei's condition was a sequelae of cerebral thrombosis, and the treatment with medicinal gas needles would have a good effect.
Under the gaze of the experts and reporters, only to see Zhao Tao unhurriedly put on a special medicine hat for Liu Yamei, massage his head for a while, then take out the silver needle and stick it to the acupuncture points on Liu Yamei's limbs. The whole audience held their breath and stared at Zhao Tao, who was calm and relaxed, and performed a needle on Liu Yamei's body. Twenty minutes later, a miracle appeared, Liu Yamei's originally unconscious limbs gradually had a heat flow and radiating trembling, and she actually grabbed the armrest and slowly stood up!
With one stitch down, Zhao's father and son became a household name in Singapore as the "Chinese Needle". More than 4,000 people called the newspaper to look for the Zhao father and son, seeking medical treatment, and some celebrity politicians even went to the Chinese Embassy in Singapore to plead for treatment.
Due to his official duties, Zhao Buchang returned to China first, and Zhao Tao stayed behind to treat the patients who had already made an appointment. Zhao Tao, who practices medicine in Singapore, does not take the initiative to charge fees, and patients usually leave red envelopes of varying amounts in order to express their gratitude. "Sometimes a few hundred dollars, the highest tens of thousands of dollars."
In three months, Zhao Tao made 900,000 US dollars, compared with the price at that time, eating a bowl of fried rice in Xi'an only 5 cents. This money later became the starting capital for zhao's father and son to start Buchang Pharmaceutical.
Chinese medicine hits
If it were not for the inspiration of the trip to Singapore, Zhao Buchang and Zhao Tao would not have turned Chinese medicine technology into a market-oriented "product", let alone Buchang Pharmaceutical, who later won the Chinese medicine market.
In the same year that Zhao's father and son visited Singapore, Deng Xiaoping inspected the southern region and delivered the famous "Southern Speech," stressing the need to speed up the pace of reform and opening up, boldly trying, and boldly breaking through.
The wind is passing. Zhao's father and son are keenly aware that China has ushered in an important node in the construction of the market economy, and the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular Chinese medicine preparations that they have successfully developed should achieve greater value and serve more patients in the open and free economic system.
On August 28, 1993, Zhao Tao and Zhao Buchang jointly founded Xianyang Buchang Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., and the following year put the first exclusive patented drug product - "Buchang Brain Heart" on the market. This proprietary Chinese medicine for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases sold for 5 million yuan in the first year, and then it soared all the way, with sales of more than 2.86 billion yuan in 2015, and Diao Xinhekang and Tasly Compound Danshen Drop Pills together with the ranks of the three major brands of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular proprietary Chinese medicines.
Why did the brain-heart communication and the products with many steps become blockbusters later?
From the perspective of products, in the mid-1990s, when Brain-Heart Tong was born, in addition to the ancient formula, there were few proprietary Chinese medicines on the market for the treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, and Western medicine did not have particularly significant products in this regard. Beneath the market gap is a huge patient demand.
From the perspective of the marketization of traditional Chinese medicines, the process of new drugs from research and development to clinical trials to approval for marketing is a long and complex process, especially for exclusive patented drugs, which requires a lot of human financial resources and time costs. Zhao Buchang developed brain-heart communication and exhausted half a lifetime of hard work. In order to find insect drugs that break through the obstruction of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, he risked his life and tasted many poisonous insect drugs such as scorpions, and finally after tens of thousands of patients took it, it was confirmed that the brain heart pass came out.
This kind of hardship and dedication is not something that anyone can bear. Even international pharmaceutical giants such as Bayer and Pfizer generally take 8 to 10 years from research and development to listing, and the cost of research and development is astronomical, and they face the risk of failure at any time. Therefore, many enterprises are reluctant to take this risk, afraid of investing in the "water drift".
Buchang spends about 3% of its sales revenue on scientific research and new product development every year, occupies the market with exclusive patented drugs, and invisibly sets a high threshold for itself. Following the success of the brain-heart communication, the two exclusive patented drug products of Steady Heart Granules and Danhong Injection have also made great progress, forming three star products in the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular Chinese medicine market. The sales revenue of these three exclusive patented drugs reached 8.817 billion yuan in 2015, contributing more than three-quarters of the revenue and gross profit to Buchang.
Buchang has formed a "diamond product group" consisting of about 60 exclusive patented drugs, and is one of the enterprises with the largest variety of patented Chinese medicines. This product idea of focusing on exclusive patented drugs has allowed Buchang to obtain policy and market dividends.
The relevant departments of the state have successively issued a catalogue of exclusive varieties and varieties protected by traditional Chinese medicines, and the varieties entering the catalogue have separate pricing power in bidding and procurement. For a long time in the past, when the price of chemical drugs was reduced by bidding and procurement, the protected varieties of Chinese medicines were able to enjoy the blue ocean exclusively, and achieved continuous growth in sales and profits.
Borrowing the popular concept of the times, the product of step length can be in line with the return to the essence of the product and the spirit of the craftsman. Zhao Tao's interpretation may be more profound:
From a broad perspective, exclusive patented drugs are the foundation of pharmaceutical companies, and from the perspective of the entire industry, patents are the most conducive to the development of chinese medicines, and are also an important tool to improve market competitiveness and accelerate the internationalization of Chinese medicines.
From a small point of view, "I am a doctor, and I must make the best medicine." Buchang also insists on using the best medicinal materials to ensure the efficacy when the cost of pharmaceutical raw materials rises the most. "It doesn't matter if the profit is less, you can make up for it by expanding sales." In the end, society will be kind to reputable enterprises and entrepreneurs with a sense of responsibility", that is, the so-called "virtuous carrier".
Marketing triple jump
Zhao Tao has accurate memories and a very good sense of business.
To this day, he can still blurt out, "The company's first business license was done by me, I remember that day clearly; the first factory land was also bought by me, and the computer pinched 2.08888 million yuan ..."
In the special field of Chinese medicine and pharmaceuticals, in the era when business theory was not developed and the business logic of enterprises had not yet been sorted out, entrepreneurs were groping forward with something almost intuitive.
Zhao Tao served as the general manager of Buchang Pharmaceutical, focusing on sales and creating several "firsts" "whimsically".
For example, as early as 1995, Zhao Tao adopted a regional advertising model. At that time, drug advertising did not restrict prescription drugs, and Buchang became the first company in China to advertise prescription drugs.
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising, Zhao Tao runs to hospitals and pharmacies every day to listen to patient feedback. At that time, many patients could not understand such professional terms as "cerebral thrombosis" and "cerebrovascular disease", so Zhao Tao revised the advertising draft and added easy-to-understand words such as "dizziness" and "dizziness". In three months, Zhao Tao spent 2 million yuan on advertising expenses, while Buchang's sales return that year reached 50 million yuan.
Later, when a large number of provincial-level television stations began to star, Zhao Tao played satellite TV linkage marketing. However, the act of spending 12 million yuan to advertise on 12 satellite tv channels across the country still aroused the opposition of almost everyone in the company. In the end, Zhao Buchang agreed to Bo from the perspective of "protecting" his son. Unexpectedly, after the satellite TV linkage, buchang's sales performance doubled that year, approaching 500 million yuan. This battle has laid a reputation for the layout of the national market.
Of course, business is never going to be smooth.
The State Council promulgated the Decision on Establishing a Basic Medical Insurance System for Urban Workers and formulated the National Basic Medical Insurance Drug Directory. This medical reform, which will benefit the vast number of people in the future, has caused many pharmaceutical companies to experience collective pain. Because BrainXintong did not enter the medical insurance drug list in time, the sales growth of its hospital channels stagnated, and the government gradually began to regulate drug advertising, prescription drugs faced marketing difficulties.
Has Brain-Heart Pass entered a period of market recession, and should the step size consider product transformation? In the face of controversy from within the enterprise, Zhao Tao and Zhao Buchang frequently investigated, analyzed the supply and demand of the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular drug market and concluded: 1. The cardiovascular and cerebrovascular drug market is growing rapidly; 2. The brain-heart communication is an exclusive patented drug, and there is no product on the market that can be completely replaced.
Buchang Pharmaceutical finally decided, on the one hand, to accelerate the research and development of similar drugs and explore a way out of non-medical insurance drugs; on the other hand, it still regards Brain-Heart Communication as a core product and changes the marketing model.
Academic promotion is a product of this background.
Buchang will hold professional academic promotion activities every year, including various academic conferences, project research, academic forums, etc. This professional academic promotion model is also an internationally used marketing method, and its biggest advantage is to publicize the results of clinical trials and drug efficacy to hospitals and doctors based on the academic characteristics of the product. Although this model has some controversy due to the irregular behavior of some pharmaceutical companies in the operation process, it cannot be denied its own positive significance.
1. Contribute to the internationalization of Chinese medicine. Western medicine does not fully understand the drug mechanism of applying the theory of Traditional Chinese medicine, even if the drug has a clinical effect, but there is no evidence-based medical argument, doctors still dare not use the drug easily. This is also the biggest obstacle encountered in the international market promotion of Chinese medicines. Buchang conducted large-scale evidence-based medical research on its Traditional Chinese medicine products.
For example, buchang entrusted authoritative institutions and experts to conduct multicenter, large-sample, double-blind evidence-based tests on steady-centered particles. The test proves that the therapeutic efficacy of the stabilizing granules for atrial premature beats is 83.6%, and the efficacy of ventricular premature beats is 83%, which can effectively improve clinical symptoms such as palpitations, chest tightness, insomnia, fatigue, etc., and there are no obvious adverse reactions, and the safety is good. These evidence-based medical demonstration results have been further promoted through academic activities.
2. Academic promotion can gather a large number of outstanding clinical experts, through the transmission of accurate product medical information, to guide clinicians to use drugs safely and rationally, which has a very positive significance for establishing a brand image.
Buchang Pharmaceutical is one of the earliest Traditional Chinese medicine enterprises to adopt professional academic promotion, and has gradually established an academic promotion team of more than 2,000 people and in-depth hospital terminals. With this model, the pace has sunk rapidly, re-consolidated the advantages of hospital channels, and taken the lead in forming a marketing network covering the whole country among private pharmaceutical companies.
Herbal Medicine 4.0
Zhao Tao loves traditional culture and believes that there is all-encompassing wisdom in it. In his context, the elites who include the entrepreneurial class are the "masters" who need to go from "being alone" to "helping the world". Similarly, entrepreneurs need to be benevolent and have a way to get rich; leading enterprises must not forget to promote the progress of the industry. Implemented in the pharmaceutical industry, the responsibility of Buchang Pharmaceutical is not only to develop a good medicine to benefit the public, but also to set a benchmark for the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine.
The modernization of a product includes the stability and standardization of quality, which is the problem of Traditional Chinese medicine products. The way to crack the step is to control the quality at the source. The establishment of a drug source base is an important measure.
In Jimsar County, Xinjiang, located in the northern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains, workers at the Buchang Safflower Planting Base are busy picking work every July. In order to ensure freshness, workers have to brave the 40-degree Celsius hot sun to pick the safflower before the petals evaporate. At the other end of the map, in Heze, Shandong Province, Danhong Injection, a traditional Chinese medicine preparation made of Xinjiang safflower, is constantly on the production line.
At the beginning of the production of Danhong injection, Buchang Pharmaceutical organized experts to select the source base of danshen and safflower. After a series of scientific evaluations, Buchang took Shandong as the source of danshen raw materials and Xinjiang as the origin of safflower raw materials. Buchang Pharmaceutical has established a medicinal material base in line with GAP (Chinese Herbal Medicine Production Specification) in the traditional Chinese medicine road real estate area, and has formulated a complete set of technical, operational and management standards, which are strictly implemented in the process of planting, harvesting and production of medicinal materials.
"We monitor irrigation water, soil and air quality for a long time, and pay attention to the study of standardized planting technology, optimal harvesting period, pest control methods and other factors that may affect the quality of medicinal materials."
Modernization also includes the introduction of digital and intelligent scientific and technological innovation.
The production line of Buchang Pharmaceutical Shandong Danhong Pharmaceutical Company is very "sci-fi". In 2015, more than 140 million Danhong injections were all from the automated production lines that currently represent the international advanced level.
Step length in the original production process of Danhong injection introduced near-infrared online automatic monitoring technology, can monitor the production process trajectory of each preparation active ingredient. If the process trajectory deviates, it will be displayed in real time on the electronic feedback screen for timely correction. To put it simply, this is actually a set of traditional Chinese medicine production process information management system, which can monitor pharmaceutical process parameters online and realize production automation control, which provides a guarantee for the consistency of ingredients and quality stability between batches of drugs.
The automated production line of Danhong injection is just a sample of Buchang Pharmaceutical's creation of "scientific and technological Chinese medicine". In fact, the production execution of the entire product line of Step Is basically digitized and automated.
Accelerate in the new era
It is rare for general Chinese medicine enterprises to achieve an operating income of billions of yuan, and at this time, the strategy has become relatively conservative. But from the beginning of the step to make a fortune, Zhao Tao does not see it this way, he believes that the past two or three decades is a good time for the development of traditional Chinese medicine, if you do not seize the strategic opportunity to accelerate forward, the enterprise can only stay in the original acre and three points of land. Moreover, Zhao Tao never forgot to promote the internationalization of Chinese medicine and at the same time "carry forward the traditional Chinese culture." ”
At a time when the Party Central Committee and the State Council attach great importance to the development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry in the new era. The 13th Five-Year Plan outlines a chapter on "Promoting the Construction of a Healthy China", which requires the improvement of the TCM medical security service system.
Buchang Pharmaceutical has adopted the two-legged approach of "acquisition + listing", while seizing the commanding heights of new drug research and development, enriching the product chain, and on the other hand, integrating industry resources with the help of the power of the capital market and improving product production capacity.
At the R&D end, Zhao Tao adopts the idea of "attaching equal importance to independent research and development and joint development" to enrich the product line by acquiring enterprises with exclusive patented drugs. Buchang has successively acquired the controlling stakes of more than ten pharmaceutical companies such as Shandong Danhong Pharmaceutical and Baoding Tianhao Pharmaceutical. In addition to the approximately 60 exclusive patented drugs currently on the market, Buchang currently has nearly 180 products under research, covering the treatment of major diseases such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, gynecology, diabetes, malignant tumors, digestion and respiratory system.
As a result, buchang has formed a new product layout of traditional Chinese medicine as the main line, high-end chemical drugs as the right wing, biotechnology drugs as the left wing, and high-tech products as the tail wing. And the formation of a virtuous circle of "listed generation, reserve generation, research and development generation, conception generation", and constantly inject product power into the long-term development of enterprises.
China is currently the world's third largest pharmaceutical consumer market and is expected to replace Japan as the second largest market in the coming years. Not only pharmaceutical consumption, the awakening of national health awareness and a new round of consumption upgrading have prompted many pharmaceutical companies to lay out the big health industry in addition to their main business to find a new engine for development.
CSPC launched VC functional drinks, Panlong Yunhai dabbled in food development, Yunnan Baiyao developed toiletries... The big opportunity in the trillion-level big health industry, Zhao Tao obviously will not let go. In his plan, entering the big health market is an important strategic choice for Buchang Pharmaceutical. In the next step, Buchang will deepen its layout in terms of large health consumer goods, health care products, medical devices, and community health education, and seek greater market dividends.
There is also a new trend in the development of the pharmaceutical market: the industry's call for "separation of medicines" is increasing, and the return of drugs, including prescription drugs, to pharmacy channels will be the trend of the times. In addition, people's concept of health has undergone a fundamental change, has shifted from the original disease treatment to prevention-oriented, so the consumer demand for chronic disease drugs and health drugs will increase significantly, and the OTC (over-the-counter drug) retail market is gradually exploding.
"In the future, once the medicine is separated, OTC will inevitably become the main battlefield", Zhao Tao built the academic promotion team of the hospital into a marketing team that took both OTC and academic balance a few years ago. Although OTC is a very different marketing system, the step size also has its own advantages.
For chain pharmacies, high gross profit is the standard for entering products. Buchang has a large number of exclusive patented drug resources with pricing advantages, and the brand value chain is long, which can provide retail pharmacies with different product portfolios to meet their pursuit of gross profit.
More importantly, Buchang has built an ecosystem for pharmacies to come in and "play" together. In addition to the product, Buchang also holds two trump cards - famous doctors and academic resources, which can provide "famous doctors sitting in the hall" and various academic activities support for cooperative pharmacies. For pharmacies, this is equivalent to two "traffic weapons" that can produce considerable traffic effects.
Leverage capital to integrate the traditional Chinese medicine industry, lay out great health, and build a new market ecology... From the acceleration of the step, it is not difficult to see that every start and sprint of this pharmaceutical company actually implies the mainstream business law of the times.
From a small point of view, this is the transformation and upgrading of an enterprise in the new era, magnified to the entire industry, which is another value sample for Chinese pharmaceutical companies to promote the modernization of traditional Chinese medicine and the internationalization of the market.
Good walkers are long
The style of a company often comes from the style of the head of the business. With this as a dimension, we can better understand the orderly and steady release of Buchang in the process of becoming a giant enterprise in traditional Chinese medicine.
The outside world looks at Zhao Tao, he is a thinker in the industry. Unlike many local medical merchants who wash their feet in Ueda, Zhao Tao came from a family of traditional Chinese medicine, was well educated, elegant and erudite, and had compassion for the world.
This may be related to Zhao Tao's dual identity as an "entrepreneur and a famous doctor", from the day he studied medicine, the benevolence of the doctor who hangs the pot to save the world and save the life and the injured is firmly rooted in his thoughts and behaviors. Even if he later became a "big boss" and "rich man" in the eyes of others through painstaking management of the enterprise, Zhao Tao's ultimate pursuit in life was not wealth and power.
During the wenchuan earthquake rescue in 2008, Zhao Tao initiated the establishment of a large-scale public welfare project of "Jointly Forging the Heart of China", and took the lead in donating 100 million yuan to set up a public welfare fund for the rescue and treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases in the "old, young, border and poor" areas. Over the past eight years, more than 10,000 medical volunteers have participated in the consultation and treatment of 330,000 farmers and herdsmen in Tibetan areas free of charge.
Zhao Tao not only went to the front line to participate in the "Forging Chinese Heart" activity every time, but also actively ran and called on more social forces to join. One person's persistence will eventually affect more people, and the true feelings flowing from the depths of one person's heart can also flow into the hearts of another group of people. More and more entrepreneurs are inspired by Zhao Tao to devote themselves to public welfare and charity.
In fact, public welfare charity is not only a platform for Zhao Tao and Buchang Pharmaceutical to give back to the society, but also an important means for the inheritance of family wealth. For most Chinese private enterprises now, the biggest problem facing them is probably not how to make more money, but how to smoothly hand over family wealth.
It is a company with a strong family color, such as Buchang Pharmaceutical, which has explored a path under the governance of Zhao Tao's very "Confucian businessman" thought.
In addition to Zhao Tao, Zhao Tao's younger brother Zhao Chao, older sister Zhao Hua, and younger sister Zhao Jing all served as bu changers, and there were also many collateral relatives working in buchang. But Zhao Tao believes that he holds the lifeblood of family governance and family inheritance, that is, the system.
From the beginning of the establishment of Buchang, Zhao Buchang and Zhao Tao have established a set of strict "family rules": first, in the management of enterprises, the implementation of democratic centralism, each person is responsible for the daily management of their own departments, not allowed to interfere in departments other than their authority, major decisions must be expressed collectively by family members; second, each family member is arranged in different posts according to their own ability, only one job is provided; third, family members violate the regulations and must be doubly punished.
Zhao Tao has a clear principle and iron law in dealing with the management of family members, "We have expelled several relatives, if you can't do a good job, don't stay in the team, everyone is equal." ”
In Zhao Tao's view, the inheritance of family wealth requires institutional and cultural integration, in addition to money, but also spiritual inheritance. To this end, Zhao Tao set up a family office and set up a family fund: part of it is for charity, part of it is used for investment, as the development of family wealth, and the other part is distributed to members within the family.
"Our family first inherits the spirit and the idea of entrepreneurship; second, I use the system to ensure that this wealth contributes to society in the most effective way; third, I establish a family trust fund to ensure the material life of future generations."
If you carefully analyze Zhao Tao's approach to family governance and wealth inheritance, it is not difficult to find that although it borrows from the family inheritance system of Western countries, its core is still the Eastern Confucian culture - calculating profits should be calculated for the interests of the world, and seeking fame should seek the names of the world.
Zhao Tao knows that wealth is difficult to be passed on forever, but the spirit and experience of creating wealth can.