The COVID-19 pandemic is sweeping the world. Although the Chinese medicine medical industry is facing many challenges in the epidemic situation, the epidemic situation in China has stabilized, and the epidemic situation in foreign countries is still spreading today, there are more views on the epidemic as a long-term opportunity point for the industry in the future. However, the relevant industries that can see market changes are mainly concentrated in the short-term incremental areas after the outbreak of the epidemic, such as test kits and protective products.
　　At present, positive progress in the research and development of domestic novel coronavirus vaccine continues to come, but there is no latest news on the research and development of specific drugs for novel coronavirus pneumonia. After the epidemic has "activated" the pharmaceutical industry to a certain extent from a global scale, can there be a new development trend in biomedical innovation in the future? In this track with the participation of global enterprises, can domestic pharmaceutical companies achieve "lead" by overtaking on corners?
　　Short-term incremental opportunityDr. Tang Jian, a returned pharmaceutical entrepreneur and biomedical research and development expert, told the Daily Economic News reporter that the impact of the current epidemic on the pharmaceutical industry is mainly reflected in two short-term incremental opportunities such as nucleic acid, antibody detection reagents and protective supplies, and in the long run, The impact of the COVID-19 epidemic on the overall environment will be reflected in the increasing attention of the whole society to the medical and pharmaceutical industry, the further expansion and enrichment of public medical resources, the expansion and improvement of the medical system, and the attraction of social resources into the medical field, and the possible concentration of Internet medical care such as telemedicine.
　　"Due to the high attention of governments around the world, the research and development of COVID-19 vaccines has made relatively good progress. The epidemic of infectious diseases is time-sensitive, so pharmaceutical companies are cautious in developing drugs for the epidemic. The SARS virus, which suddenly appeared in 2003, has yet to produce a specific drug, because few pharmaceutical companies have developed targeted drugs. This is the same situation with the new coronavirus pneumonia, pharmaceutical companies will observe and assess the likely duration of the epidemic, the strength of demand for specific drugs, and the time and financial costs that may be required to develop specific drugs. It is not ruled out that those pharmaceutical companies that have been engaged in antiviral research and development may immediately layout drug research for the new coronavirus, or carry out benign research for drugs already on the market. But it should be difficult to start the development of new COVID-19 specific drugs." Tang Jian said.
　　In the early stage of the epidemic, due to the impact of production capacity, there was a large gap in medical masks, medical protective clothing and other protective supplies, and there was also a large gap in protective masks and testing reagents for daily use. However, with the continuous increase of subsequent production capacity, as well as the layout of many non-medical device manufacturers such as Foxconn and BYD for protective equipment production lines, the above situation has been effectively alleviated. The supply capacity of nucleic acid testing enterprises is also constantly improving.
　　Tang Jian said that the current epidemic has brought short-term incremental opportunities for nucleic acid test kits, antibody test kits and protective supplies. At present, the domestic epidemic has gradually stabilized, and many kit manufacturers and protective supplies manufacturers have begun to look to overseas markets. He believes that in the future industry, enterprises that have obtained domestic and foreign registration certificates, a high degree of automation, and the layout of a variety of protective product pipelines have better development prospects.
　　Long-term Innovation opportunities: The Internet and Artificial IntelligenceErnst & Young (China) Enterprise Consulting company report pointed out that in the medium and long term, the epidemic is having a subtle impact on the pharmaceutical and medical industry, which may bring changes in the development focus of the industry and the reshaping of business models.
　　Ey believes that from the perspective of the government, due to the significant impact of the epidemic, the pain points of traditional medicine are fully exposed, such as the scarcity and imbalance of medical resources, medical services may be limited, etc., it is expected that the government will pay more attention to the development of the medical and health industry after the epidemic. From the perspective of the current policy trend, the innovative medical system and innovative insurance payment mode facing the grassroots such as hierarchical diagnosis and treatment, medical union, family doctor system, and community first diagnosis will obtain rare opportunities for development.
　　At the same time in the hospital, the information reform is expected to get rapid development. Ernst & Young said that because the construction of Internet hospitals in the past is still in the initial stage of development, Internet hospitals have played a very important value in this epidemic, "future policies include the deployment of Internet diagnosis and treatment consulting services, online prescription deregulation, and medical insurance payments may be included in the Internet hospital system." These will become an important force to promote the realization of ecological closed loop in Internet hospitals. We believe that in the future, the Internet will be deeply integrated into the hospital process, and the hospital and the medical union will be built into a real Internet hospital, which can not only do simple consultation, but also have functional services such as joint consultation, report interpretation, and medical insurance online settlement."For the development opportunities brought by Internet medical treatment in the post-epidemic period, Soochow Securities Research Report pointed out that Internet medical treatment will accelerate the outflow of prescriptions and promote the accelerated integration of the pharmacy industry. The research report said that at present, China's drug retail market accounts for about 23.5% of the entire drug terminal market, and there is still a large gap with developed countries, due to policy-oriented hospitals to reduce the proportion of drugs, prescription outflow remains stable every year. Data show that from 2010 to 2018, the proportion of drugs in public hospitals fell from 41.8% to 28.7%, and the growth rate of drug revenue fell from 16.3% to 1.4%. "We believe that the trend of prescription outflow has been set, and the Internet + medical insurance policy in the post-epidemic period will further accelerate the process of prescription outflow, and chain pharmacies are expected to benefit."On the other hand, the "AI+ drug research and development" track has gained more and more attention during this outbreak. In January this year, Alibaba Cloud announced that it would open all AI computing power to public scientific research institutions worldwide for free to accelerate the research and development of new drugs and vaccines for the novel coronavirus pneumonia. In February, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a proposal, proposing to give full play to the utility of artificial intelligence, optimize AI algorithms and computing power, and help drug research and development such as virus gene sequencing, vaccine and drug research and development, and protein screening.
　　In view of the use of AI in the field of drug research and development, Tang Jian pointed out that the current related trends mostly stay at the level of news reports, and have not yet seen the embodiment of specific results, AI companies themselves are not drug development companies, but they can cooperate with pharmaceutical companies to help pharmaceutical companies improve the efficiency of drug development.
　　In addition to its possible role in the research and development center of new drugs and vaccines, the EY report pointed out that AI can also be used in auxiliary diagnostic systems to effectively shorten the issuance time of diagnosis reports, assist diagnosis and treatment and literature query, and also play an important role in reducing cross-infection and event warning. However, EY also mentioned that the current impact of AI in the epidemic is still limited, and the impact of the epidemic on hospital operations and patient visits has not been completely eliminated.
　　Research and development of pharmaceutical companies: It is still recommended to focus on advantageous areasThe global spread of COVID-19 has disrupted people's lives and economic order in various countries, but the field of new drug research and development, which had high hopes, seems to be unable to turn the tide. According to a statistics conducted by Sina Medicine in May this year, a total of 139 transactions occurred in the research and development cooperation on new coronavirus drugs in the first four months of 2020, and 55% of these transactions were led by non-government and funded mainly from enterprises.
　　Of these 139 collaborations, about 56% are in the early stage of research and development, about 9.3% are in the clinical trial stage, and the rest are "production supply", "service", "sponsorship" and so on. So far, in addition to the occasional good news about the new coronavirus vaccine, the development of special drugs is still a long road.
　　Tang Jian told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that due to the timeliness of the epidemic and other reasons and the long process of new drug research and development, it can be seen that there is no SARS specific drugs available until now, and domestic investment institutions are better at investing in "model" projects, and the investment community's investment in the industry including drug research and development has slowed down since 2018.
　　Tang Jian believes that the possible direction of new corona-related drug development is mainly to re-study teams that have done corona-virus research before; Or carry out some new indications for old drugs, and start new research and development of specific drugs may be "unlikely to succeed.""Although everyone is particularly concerned about the epidemic, what has not changed is that China's cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, and tumors are still among the top priorities." The number of patients is large, and so is the demand for drugs. Before the epidemic, most companies were doing drug development around these indications, and how they did it originally, they will continue to do so after the epidemic. For example, high blood pressure, the country has two or three hundred million patients, diabetes has more than 100 million patients, and talk about the color of cancer, these disease areas are full of expectations for new drugs, companies will still do around these.""The pharmaceutical industry has not been able to meet the people's demand for good, high-quality medicine, and this contradiction has always existed," he said. But it's not like we just watched and didn't do something about it. Each pharmaceutical company will adapt to changes in the market and the environment based on its own situation. Enterprises should be very adaptable, adapt to the environment, and focus on their own advantages and expertise. You should have a clear understanding of what you can do and what you can't do, and you can't just chase hot spots and lose your original things. Companies still need to have their own expertise and be patient. The pharmaceutical industry is a high-investment, long-cycle industry, and enterprises should adapt to this law.""Medical development keeps its pace. Competent companies, which have done antibiotics or research and development before and have particularly strong financial strength, may try to do new coronavirus drugs. But for more small and medium-sized enterprises, the original or continue to do what, because the epidemic will eventually pass, for example, our company or continue to focus on diabetes and cancer, these areas more patients at home and abroad are still looking forward to the emergence of new drugs." Tang Jian said.
　　When it comes to whether the Chinese medicine industry, which is prominent in the epidemic, can use this opportunity to go abroad and go to the high-end market in Europe and the United States, Tang Jian believes that because the evaluation system of Chinese medicine and Western medicine is not compatible, it is difficult to see Chinese medicine really go to the European and American markets in the short and medium term.