Quick-acting Heart Relief Pills Explode in Popularity Overnight: 30-Fold Surge in Popularity, Can't Hide the Dilemma in the 90 Billion Yuan Market Segment

A well-known education blogger, Xue Feng, passed away due to a sudden cardiac arrest of cardiac origin, which has turned the issue of heart health among middle-aged and young people into a topic of nationwide concern. Fast-acting Heart-Saving Pills, Compound Danshen Dripping Pills, and other traditional Chinese patent medicines for emergency treatment of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular conditions have since become focal points in the consumer market. Public data disclosed by e-commerce platforms show that within a few hours after the incident gained momentum, searches for related cardiovascular and cerebrovascular medications surged more than 30-fold year-on-year. The A-share market’s traditional Chinese patent medicine sector for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular conditions also saw a short-term bout of abnormal trading. This wave of consumption heat, spawned by a health tragedy, has brought the long-dormant cardiovascular and cerebrovascular traditional Chinese patent medicine segment back into the public eye. However, after the hype fades, long-standing maladies in the industry—such as reliance on big single products, insufficient R&D investment, and an imbalanced expense structure—remain prominent. The growth predicament faced by leading companies in the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular traditional Chinese patent medicine space has not fundamentally changed.

Short-Term Hype

A sudden health tragedy quickly transformed into soaring interest on the medicine consumption side. After relevant news spread on the evening of March 24, public attention to emergency heart care drugs and cardiovascular health products surged explosively. The concentrated release of emergency “reserve medication” demand among middle-aged and young people changed the previously elderly-dominated consumption pattern for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular medications.

Real-time data published by JD Pharmacy show that starting the evening of March 24, searches for core heart medications such as Fast-acting Heart-Saving Pills and nitroglycerin increased more than 30-fold year-on-year. Searches for medical devices such as AED automatic external defibrillators and ECG/oxyhemoglobin monitoring devices rose 10-fold month-on-month. Searches for cardiovascular-related health products such as coenzyme Q10 and deep-sea fish oil also climbed in parallel. Customer service representatives from multiple online pharmacies told reporters from the Huaxia Times that, compared with normal days, consultation volume and order volume for the relevant medications have increased significantly recently. The capital markets also responded quickly: the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular traditional Chinese patent medicine sector strengthened in the short term, and the stock prices of related listed companies saw a modest spike.

As the exclusive manufacturer of Fast-acting Heart-Saving Pills, Tianjin Yishengtang? [Note: translated literally as-is?] Tianjin Darentang rose 3.6% this week, while the traditional Chinese medicine index fell 3.03% this week. Industry leaders such as Tasly, Buzhong? [Note: translated literally as-is?] Buzhang Pharmaceutical, and Yiling Pharmaceutical also won market attention by relying on their cardiovascular products.

Zhao Heng, founder of the medical strategy consulting firm LatitudeHealth, told reporters from the Huaxia Times that this sector’s rally is a typical short-term volatility driven by an event, not a fundamental change in the industry’s fundamentals; the persistence of the subsequent hype remains doubtful.

Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular traditional Chinese patent medicines are the largest sub-sector in China’s traditional Chinese medicine market by scale, with demand that is highly rigid. The market landscape has long been highly consolidated. Data from Minet? [Note: company name as-is] show that in recent years, cardiovascular system traditional Chinese patent medicines have consistently maintained a scale of over 90 billion yuan across the three major terminal markets.

In the two core markets—public medical institutions and retail terminals—competitive advantages among leading firms are evident. Exclusive products under Tasly, such as Compound Danshen Dripping Pills; under Darentang, such as Fast-acting Heart-Saving Pills; under Shanghai Haihuang? [Note: name as-is] and Huang Pharmaceutical, such as Shexiang Xinxin? [Note: name as-is]; and under Bu? [Note: name as-is] Buzhang Pharmaceutical, such as NaoXinTong Capsules—all have long ranked among the top in sales. The annual sales revenue of a single big single product can reach tens of billions of yuan. In the first three quarters of 2025, Tasly’s exclusive product Compound Danshen Dripping Pills and Darentang’s Fast-acting Heart-Saving Pills both ranked among the top five positions at retail terminals.

It is worth noting that, in this market upsurge, the heat has been concentrated more on the online retail end, and it clearly carries an “emergency reserve medication” attribute rather than a substantive increase in patients’ long-term medication demand. Zhang Cong, general manager of Zhejiang? [Note: name as-is] Zhejiang? [Actually “卓恒医疗咨询集团” is likely “Zhuoheng Medical Consulting Group”] Zhuoheng Medical Consulting Group, candidly told reporters from the Huaxia Times that cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are mostly chronic conditions that require long-term standardized medication and health management. This short-term wave of stocking up for reserves caused by a sudden incident is difficult to translate into a sustained performance增量 for companies. As public emotions gradually settle and health awareness returns to rationality, the sales volumes and market heat of the relevant medications will very likely drop quickly. The industry will find it difficult to achieve a fundamental turnaround relying on a single public event.

Long-Term Dilemma

No matter what, short-term market hype can’t hide the long-term development predicament of the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular traditional Chinese patent medicine industry. In recent years, due to multiple factors—including centralized procurement price cuts for traditional Chinese patent medicines, tighter control of medical insurance spending, and intensified competition from chemical and biological drug substitutes—overall industry growth has continued to slow down. The performance pressure on multiple leading companies is evident. A closer look at financial reports from leading firms such as Darentang and Tasly shows serious reliance on big single products, insufficient R&D investment, high marketing expenses, weak innovation capabilities, and other problems. These have become the core pain points constraining high-quality development in the sector, and the entire track is mired in the difficulties of transformation.

Reliance on big single products is the most common development bottleneck in the industry, and Darentang is highly representative. As a time-honored century-old traditional Chinese medicine brand, Darentang’s performance is highly dependent on its core product, Fast-acting Heart-Saving Pills. Data show that in 2024, Darentang Pharmaceutical’s industrial revenue was 4.491 billion yuan, of which Fast-acting Heart-Saving Pills generated 1.98 billion yuan, accounting for nearly half of industrial revenue. In that year, the sales volume of Fast-acting Heart-Saving Pills was 56.78 million boxes, while sales volumes of other medicines were only at the level of about one million boxes. The trend of performance is tightly linked to that single product. Even more concerning is that the growth of Fast-acting Heart-Saving Pills has become sluggish: in 2024, its sales volume fell 1.70%, inventory rose 81%, and there is insufficient momentum for growth in the core business.

Tasly, another leading player in the track, is also trapped in the same type of development predicament. On the performance side, in 2025 Tasly’s industrial business main revenue was 7.382 billion yuan, down 2.54% year-on-year. Total revenue was 8.236 billion yuan, down 3.08% year-on-year. Net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was 791 million yuan, down sharply 23.59%. The company attributed the revenue decline to price reductions under centralized procurement and an industry-wide downturn in TCM injection products. Tasly’s core product, Compound Danshen Dripping Pills, has long remained at the top of the market in terms of sales volume. In 2025, the product’s revenue was about 3.7 billion yuan, accounting for about half of the company’s TCM industrial revenue.

In stark contrast to severe single-product reliance is the industry-wide lack of sufficient R&D investment. Most companies continue the traditional operating model of “heavy sales, light R&D,” and their R&D expense ratios are not only far lower than those of chemical and biological drug companies.

Taking Darentang as an example, in recent years the company’s R&D expenses have hovered around 160 million yuan. In the first three quarters of 2025, R&D spending as a proportion of total revenue was about 2.85%, while sales expense proportion in the same period was as high as 38%. R&D and marketing spending are seriously out of balance. Although Tasly’s R&D investment is relatively higher, in 2025 its R&D expenses were 686 million yuan, accounting for 10.26% of total revenue. However, in the same period its sales expenses were as high as 2.972 billion yuan, accounting for 36% of total revenue. The expense structure remains imbalanced.

The short-term market heat brought by this incident is only a temporary “rebound” for the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular traditional Chinese patent medicine industry, and it cannot solve the deeply rooted structural problems in the sector. For traditional Chinese medicine patent medicine companies, to achieve long-term, steady development, they must make up for shortfalls in R&D, abandon the traditional model of “heavy marketing, light R&D,” and only then can they get out of the current development dilemma.

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