Alibaba's investment in Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group leads to Jack Ma's 7 guesses on the medical chess game

In Jack Ma's chess game, in addition to the first move at the database level, Alibaba's implementation of Jack Ma's medical dream has already entered the forefront of the traditional pharmaceutical industry. Recently, Jack Ma's Yunfeng Fund invested 500 million yuan in Baiyunshan to rush to this commanding heights.

It is said that Shanghai Yunfeng New Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd., invested by Jack Ma and Yu Feng, participated in the fixed investment in Baiyunshan in just three days. One important reason for being so bullish on Baiyunshan is that this investment may be the best partner for Alibaba, which is currently making every effort to open up the pharmaceutical e-commerce market. After summarizing the views of various parties, Nandu reporters found that Jack Ma's recent layout in traditional industries has brought seven speculations to the industry.

Hypothesis 1: Expanding the pharmaceutical e-commerce and prescription drug online shopping business

The 2013 Top 100 Chinese Pharmaceutical Wholesale Enterprises in terms of Main Business Revenue list released by the Ministry of Commerce in 2014 showed that Guangzhou Pharmaceutical, in which Baiyunshan holds a 50% stake, ranked fifth in the country with a main business revenue of 24.645 billion yuan. Guangzhou Pharmaceutical's joint venture shareholder Walgreens Boots Alliance is the world's largest pharmaceutical distributor.

Guangzhou Pharmaceutical, which has been positioned as Baiyunshan's "big business" business platform, will receive 1 billion yuan from the 10 billion yuan refinancing for capital increase, and its joint venture partner Walgreens Boots Alliance will also increase its capital in Guangzhou Pharmaceutical. With the start of the capital increase, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical's national layout will also be fully rolled out, which will help Alibaba's long-running pharmaceutical e-commerce business gain the national channel it has long dreamed of. As of now, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical has built 17 pharmaceutical logistics centers across the country.

Of course, Baiyunshan is not just about channel or logistics resources. Take the online sales of prescription drugs that Alibaba is currently trying to promote as an example. Baiyunshan has all the hospital resources, doctor resources, and practicing pharmacist resources that Alibaba lacks. Taking hospital resources as an example, the "smart pharmacy" of Guangzhou Baiyunshan and Guangdong Second Hospital, an extension project of modern pharmaceutical logistics services, has become an industry benchmark.

Hypothesis 2: Sharing the O2O feast after the separation of medicine and pharmacy

The initiative to promote the real “separation of medicine and pharmacy” is an important part of Jack Ma’s dream of creating a medical dream. In order to achieve this goal, Yunfeng Fund previously purchased CITIC 21st Century, the predecessor of Ali Health, which has the qualification of 95095 third-party medical e-commerce pilot platform, at a high price.

Ali Health is currently promoting an APP similar to Didi Taxi in Hebei and Northeast China, hoping to quickly enter the electronic prescription business for medicines. The promotion of Ali Health's prescription drug order grabbing APP business in South China will be the general trend, and Baiyunshan is undoubtedly the best partner, no doubt about it.

In the commercial sector of Baiyunshan, pharmaceutical e-commerce is a new format that is being developed with emphasis. The "Guangdong Pharmaceutical Jianmin" e-commerce platform is one of the first legal online pharmacies in Guangdong Province approved by the State Food and Drug Administration. It currently has millions of registered members and has obtained the qualification for cross-border e-commerce pilot, taking a leading position in the industry. Many companies under Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Baiyunshan have opened flagship stores on Tmall, such as Jianmin Pharmacy, Caizhilin, Baiyunshan Hutchison, etc.

As for the physical pharmacies used to "grab orders", Baiyunshan's large commercial sector currently has more than 100 retail pharmacies. Some flagship pharmacies under Baiyunshan's large commercial sector have already built new image stores based on the model of Alliance Boots Walgreens. As we all know, Europe and the United States mostly adopt the system of separation of medicine and pharmacy, and Alliance Boots Walgreens' experience in medicine O2O is the world's leading.

Hypothesis 3: Carry out cross-border health trade

Ma Yun's medical dream is consistent with Baiyunshan's vigorous development of the big health industry. This time, Baiyunshan plans to use 4 billion yuan of the funds raised to increase the capital of Wanglaoji Big Health, build a "big health" industry platform, and expand the big health industry. Given that Alibaba has been engaged in overseas shopping business on Tmall International for many years, and Guangzhou Pharmaceutical, which is part of Baiyunshan's big business map, currently represents more than 40,000 SKUs (categories) and also has the qualification for cross-border trade pilot, the two parties jointly carrying out cross-border big health trade also seems to have a bright future.

Hypothesis 4: Advancing into the “future hospital”

Jack Ma's Alipay has been promoting a plan since last year to change the current situation of overcrowding in most public hospitals in China, help hospitals improve their operating efficiency and optimize the allocation of medical resources. This plan is named "Future Hospital Plan". According to this plan, Alipay will open its platform capabilities to medical institutions in the future, including account systems, mobile platforms, payment and financial solutions, cloud computing capabilities, big data platforms, etc., to help hospitals become more efficient in the mobile Internet era.

After opening up the big data platform and combining it with cloud computing capabilities, and cooperating with wearable device manufacturers, medical institutions, government health departments, etc. to jointly build a health management platform based on big data, Jack Ma's ultimate goal is to achieve a shift from treatment to prevention.

Coincidentally, Baiyunshan is also actively developing a large medical sector, mainly investing in health industries such as medical care, health management, and health care. Recently, the company has signed a contract with Guangzhou Iron and Steel Group to jointly build Guangzhou Iron and Steel Hospital into a Class 3A hospital.

It should be said that Jack Ma's informatization is what Li Chuyuan needs, and the state-owned medical resources that Li Chuyuan can mobilize at Baiyun Mountain may be what Jack Ma values.

Hypothesis 5: Create a “drug safety plan”

"Ten years from now, China will inevitably have a large number of sick patients, and China's current pharmaceutical industry is in chaos, with a large proportion of counterfeit drugs and insurance fraud drugs. We invested in the pharmaceutical industry in order to plan for the next ten years and to change this social situation." This is one of the main reasons why Jack Ma's medical dream came true.

In order to achieve this original intention, Alibaba's "Drug Safety Plan" has been officially launched. Last year, on July 10, Alibaba announced that Taobao Mobile and Alipay Wallet, two billion-level applications, launched the "Drug Safety Plan". As long as you use these two clients to scan the barcode and drug regulatory code on any box of drug packaging on the market nationwide, you can get information such as the authenticity, usage, contraindications, production batches and circulation process of the drug.

Previously, CITIC 21st Century Company (Ali Health), which was invested by Jack Ma and Yunfeng Fund, was the winning bidder and contractor for the construction of the national drug regulatory code system. Through years of promoting drug regulatory codes, Ali is working hard to build the most comprehensive database of domestic drugs. And letting Chinese people take safe and reliable drugs is also the corporate philosophy of Baiyunshan. In addition, Baiyunshan's expert resources and practical experience in the fields of drug adverse information collection and drug counterfeiting will also provide intellectual support for the "drug safety plan" that Ali is building.

Hypothesis 6: Preparing to build Alibaba’s version of the pharmaceutical exchange

"We expect that in addition to OTC, online sales of prescription drugs will also be liberalized in the future. With the full liberalization of online drug sales, the relationship between drugs and hospitals will be separated, and pharmaceutical companies will need to find their own retail channels, including the Internet." A senior executive of Alibaba once said. Alibaba's initial plan is to set up a medical store platform on Taobao Mobile. At the same time, through cooperation with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, Alibaba can accurately understand which drugs are in high demand in which places through big data, and then cooperate with pharmaceutical companies for targeted distribution. Negotiations with hospitals and pharmaceutical companies in this regard are already underway.

In addition, serving B2C users first and then promoting B2B is also a question that the Alibaba pharmaceutical team is thinking about. For this reason, there are constant rumors that Alibaba will use existing platforms to build an online pharmaceutical exchange. The above-mentioned Alibaba person also admitted that "Alibaba has no plans to build a pharmaceutical exchange for the time being, but if it is to be built in the future, Alibaba's foundation must be the best." If Jack Ma really wants to do pharmaceutical exchange business in the future, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, where Baiyunshan is located, is also the best partner. Public information shows that Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group is currently ranked first among the top 100 industrial enterprises in China in 2014, and the rich experience accumulated in bidding in various provinces across the country is also comparable to that in the industry.

Hypothesis 7: Joint efforts to develop new drugs

The detailed description of Ma Yun’s medical dream first emerged at the Alibaba Technology Forum on the evening of March 18, 2014. Ma Yun was the last guest to speak on stage, during which he first talked about the purpose of his investment in CITIC 21st Century: “The answer is health.”

Similarly, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, where Baiyunshan is located, has been active in the research and development of new drugs for major diseases. On March 27 last year, Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group announced the introduction of "three original 1.1-class anti-tumor new drugs, all of which are innovative chemical drugs." It is reported that once these three potential new drugs are successfully developed, they will fill the domestic gap. With the advent of the big data era, the medical big data controlled by Alibaba may help Baiyunshan's new drug research and development process.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.