Shionogi Accesses Ping An’s Database of 300 Million People in China to Design New Healthcare Services

The pharmaceutical market in China is expected to reach 250 trillion yen in 2030, ranking second after the United States and most importantly displaying great potential for the healthcare supply chain.

Eying the tremendous healthcare data that can be collected in China, Japan-based drug maker Shionogi plans on accessing Ping An Insurance’s database that includes over 300 million people in China for the development of new drugs and healthcare services.

Advantages of Accessing Data in China

As Japan’s pharmaceutical company starting to work cross-industry and go digital, Shionogi allied with its China comrade by utilizing the wide range of healthcare data in China to target the actual needs of the consumers instead of randomly throwing out products to test the market. “We can’t answer the needs of patients and health care stakeholders by providing pharmaceutical products alone,” Teshirogi said.

What’s more, China would be a strategic place for Shionogi to build up new products because the laws of securing personal data are weaker than in Japan, therefore boosting possibilities for companies to try out new business models

Shionogi President Isao Teshirogi once said that “You can do things in China that you can’t do in Japan,” expressing that China is comparatively freer.

Furthermore, the alliance Shionogi works with is no amateur. Ping An is one of the largest financial service companies in the world, providing integrated financial services in 5 fields, including healthcare, auto services, real estate services, and smart city. Ping An not only ranked 7th in the Forbes Global 2000 list in 2020 also scored 29th on the Fortune Global 500 list in 2019.

Cooperation Since March

Strong ties between Shionogi and Ping An can be traced back to March 2020, where Shionogi sold 33.5 billion yen worth of shares to Ping An, positioning Ping An as the 7th biggest shareholder with 2%. In July 2020, Shionogi and Ping An launched joint ventures in Shanghai (Ping An-Shionogi) and Hong Kong (Ping An-Shionogi Hong Kong), aiming to tackle the increasing demand for healthcare services and innovative drugs with AI and new technology, fundamentally building up an ecosystem and platform in Asia.

By Tyler Chen

Related Article: Spotlight: Shionogi’s Big Bet on Tetra Therapeutics

References

1. http://www.pingan.cn/tc/common/news/article/1595840405317.shtml
2. http://www.pingan.cn/tc/common/news/article/1585556027098.shtml

Author

Tyler Chen

"Never go to a doctor whose office plants have died."- Erma Bombeck