Suning Global Enters the Regenerative Medicine Field
Recently, Suning Global Health Investment Development Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Suning Global Holdings Limited, signed an 'Investment Agreement' with 'Shenzhen Zhongke Huarui Biotechnology Co., Ltd.' and 'Hunan Ruishengke Biotechnology Co., Ltd.', completing the formal acquisition and obtaining control equity. It will also increase capital jointly with the original shareholders of Zhongke Huarui and Hunan Ruishengke to officially enter the regenerative medicine field.
An Initial Exploration of the Regenerative Medicine Industry
Regenerative medicine refers to a new discipline and frontier interdisciplinary field that studies and develops theories and technologies for replacing, repairing, reconstructing, or regenerating various tissues and organs of the human body by applying principles and methods from life sciences, materials science, and other disciplines. It mainly aims to promote the body's self-repair and regeneration by understanding the characteristics and functions of normal human tissues, as well as the mechanisms of trauma repair and regeneration, in order to construct new tissues and organs to maintain, repair, or improve the function of damaged tissues and organs. In recent years, the regenerative medicine field has developed rapidly, and its connotation has continuously expanded, including tissue engineering, stem cell research, gene therapy, as well as traditional biochemistry and materials science, among multiple disciplines and fields.
The development of regenerative medicine has significant strategic importance and can bring huge social and economic benefits, thus being listed as one of the major national scientific and technological research directions.With strong government support and continuous efforts from relevant personnel in the field, some research results in China's regenerative medicine have reached international leading levels and gradually show great application value and development prospects.
The Current Application Status and Prospects of Regenerative Medicine
According to Statista statistics, the global regenerative medicine market size was about $16.9 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach $95.5 billion by 2030, with a CAGR of 21.22%, showing rapid growth. From a geographical perspective, developed countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom have certain first-mover advantages in scientific research achievements, laws and regulations, and market development, but this advantage is gradually shrinking as the market shifts to Asia and Europe. In terms of application scenarios, regenerative medicine has been applied in clinical and medical aesthetics fields, mainly including skin transplantation, bone and joint repair, bladder reconstruction, pancreatic function treatment, slowing down skin aging, removing scars, regulating pigmentation, hair growth, etc.
Under the influence of multiple factors such as rapid economic development, increased disposable income, and lower technical barriers for medical aesthetics compared to the clinical field,regenerative medicine has taken the lead in achieving relatively prominent results in anti-aging,partly due to researchers' deep understanding of stem cell characteristics and their extensive development of their applications in the medical aesthetics field.
Stem cells are known as anti-aging factor factories, with strong value, differentiation, and metabolic capabilities. They can directly replace aging and dead body cells or be used to directly deliver specific therapeutic molecules or genes to activate the anti-aging effects of other adult cells. Stem cells secrete membrane vesicles called exosomes for intercellular substance transport. Exosomes contain proteins, RNA, DNA and other substances that can be effectively internalized by target cells, thereby regulating the biological function network of other cells.
Compared with paracrine signals and endocrine signals, exosomes have significant advantages due to their ability to carry multiple messages and regulate at different stages of gene expression. The functions of exosomes include promoting angiogenesis, accelerating collagen synthesis, inhibiting inflammation, slowing down apoptosis, etc., which can delay the aging process from multiple dimensions and stages. Therefore,stem cell exosomes have become a new trend in the anti-aging field.
Schematic diagram of exosome substance information transport
At the same time, research on stem cell exosomes in disease treatment, drug delivery, and as biomarkers for diagnosis is also in full swing. The role of exosomes in anti-cancer drugs, diagnostic reagents, drug carriers, skin health, cell regeneration, anti-aging, etc. is attracting increasing attention. While developing technology, it will promote the improvement of relevant policies. With the introduction of relatively complete policies, regulations, norms, and guidelines, the responsibilities of management institutions and departments are clearly defined, market operations become more standardized, capital from upstream, midstream, and downstream enterprises rushes in rapidly,and stem cell exosomes will have broad market prospects in the medical aesthetics field.
Suning Global is actively transforming into a leading enterprise in the regenerative medicine field
As real estate enters the inventory era from the incremental era, supply and demand are basically balanced; population aging and low fertility are becoming increasingly prominent, housing demand continues to shrink; and tightening policies such as the three red lines and stricter supervision of pre-sale funds have been introduced. Driven by multiple factors, the high-growth and high-profit development stage of the real estate industry is coming to an end, and the industry is developing towards standardization and stability. Many enterprises whose main business is real estate have begun exploring transformation paths to cope with the rapidly changing situation.
Suning Global established three major transformation directions in 2015: culture and sports, health, and finance, reducing investment in the real estate field. In 2016, it completed several cross-border acquisitions of enterprises in the medical aesthetics and health management fields, quickly deploying downstream in the medical beauty track. In the following years, it made successive investment layouts upstream and downstream in the medical beauty field.
Currently, Suning Global has several medical beauty hospitals and clinics in nearly 10 cities across the country, and a three-level chain system of 'first-line flagship medical beauty hospitals, provincial comprehensive medical beauty hospitals, and county-level standardized clinics' has taken initial shape. Frost & Sullivan believes that by owning a large group of real estate developers and medical beauty customers in various cities,and by integrating different customer groups to widely cover target customers in multiple regions and age groups, it has opened up links for upstream product sales and laid a foundation for products to quickly occupy the market.
The acquired parties, Shenzhen Zhongke Huarui and Hunan Ruishengke, mainly operate businesses such as the research, development, production, and sales of medical beauty product R&D materials like stem cell exosome liquid dressings, covering the upper and middle parts of the regenerative medicine industry chain,which makes good complement to Suning Global's layout in the medical beauty industry chain.This acquisition also means that Suning Global has further completed its full industrial chain layout in the medical beauty industry. On the one hand, the upstream segment has a high gross profit level due to the high technical barriers of products. The integration of the midstream and upstream of the industrial chain can enhance Suning Global's cost reduction and efficiency improvement capabilities, alleviating its initial pressure in entering the medical beauty field; on the other hand, Zhongke Huarui and Ruishengke's R&D and commercialization capabilities quickly make up for Suning Global's layout in the medical beauty industry chain, which is conducive to its internal integration. By leveraging brand advantages and marketing capabilities, they can fully mobilize their resources in the entire medical beauty industry chain, providing guarantee for the rapid and steady establishment and growth of the company in the medical beauty industry.
Frost & Sullivan has conducted a comprehensive due diligence on Zhongke Huarui and Ruishengke and believes that their technical strength is strong.They have obtained multiple national patents and Class I and II medical device registration certificates in the regenerative medicine field, which is conducive to the rapid commercial application of core products. In addition, Zhongke Huarui also has multiple exosome extraction and separation technologies, among which the composite extraction technology is exclusive globally and has certain technical advantages. In terms of technology transformation and application,Zhongke Huarui has a rich product lineand currently owns and plans to launch products for medical aesthetics, daily beauty, and OEM production, covering a wide consumer group and having broad market space in the future.The company's product sales layout is also relatively extensive, such as the anti-aging product Alhanna Mini Ice Bottle, which has covered 27 provincial administrative regions and 230 medical institutions across the country. The company promotes product sales and promotion through a combination of self-operated medical institutions and agency channels, with a marketing network covering the whole country and a relatively mature system.
This investment is the first step in Suning Global's implementation of its biopharmaceutical technology development strategy. In the future, the company will continue to absorb high-quality resources by combining its own advantages and make continuous investment layouts across the country in anti-aging. The regenerative medicine field has great development potential. With the optimization of industry norms and the gradual mastery of key technologies, the industry is about to enter a rapid growth stage. It is expected that Suning Global's investment and construction in this field will bring abundant and long-lasting growth momentum to the enterprise.
*This article is specially released
