From "Profiting from Medicine Price Differences" to "Gaining Health Benefits" Retail Pharmacies Tap into the Silver Age Health Market

Ask AI · How does population aging force pharmacies to innovate their service model?

《Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily》March 30 Notice (Reporter: Shi Shiyun) As the pace of population aging continues to accelerate, the silver economy has begun to become an important track and a new growth engine for the retail pharmacy industry’s transformation and upgrading.

According to data from the China Statistical Yearbook 2025, as of the end of 2024, in China there were already 19 provinces where the proportion of people aged 65 and above exceeded 14%, and 20 provinces where the proportion of people aged 60 and above broke through 20%. This set of figures indicates that our country has entered a moderately aging society overall.

At the 2026 Xinding Summit, a reporter from 《Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily》 observed that the silver-age boom that comes with aging is bringing new opportunities for the drug retail industry that urgently needs to move beyond extensive expansion and transform and upgrade.

“Compared with the traditional profit model in the past that focused mainly on selling medicines, today many retail pharmacies are beginning to lay out the silver-health area, expanding diversified businesses such as chronic disease management, products designed to be senior-friendly, health monitoring, and health and eldercare services. They are shifting from simply selling drugs to providing health management services. If you don’t seize this wave of opportunities, the road ahead will inevitably get narrower and narrower, and then staying alive will become even harder.” A retail pharmacy executive responsible for multiple regional operations across the country told a reporter from 《Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily》.

When retail pharmacies begin to position themselves around silver-age health and it becomes a boom that the industry rushes to pursue, real problems also follow: the direction is clear, but how exactly should the path be taken? Is it just a matter of stocking senior-friendly products and adding health screening equipment, or truly settling down to deliver chronic disease management and long-term health services? Is it chasing trends and蹭ing the concept, or building barriers in a solid way through products, services, and trust?

“Under this boom, what’s even more needed is calm thinking. The silver economy is not simply ‘selling products for seniors,’ nor is it only taking an elderly person’s blood pressure and measuring blood sugar. It’s about truly addressing seniors’ health pain points and medication needs. Otherwise, even if you stand on the boom, it will still be difficult to genuinely take off by riding the momentum,” the aforementioned retail pharmacy executive said.

▌From “earning drug price spreads” to “earning health outcomes”

At dawn, a streak of sunlight slants into the retail pharmacy. The elderly first pick out a hot meal and daily necessities in the fresh-food area, then head to the pharmacy counter window to pick up prescriptions delivered in coordination with the hospital. The pharmacist checks the medication while carefully recording blood pressure and blood sugar, and simultaneously updates the chronic disease health record. Off to the side, in the health corner, a senior health manager patiently explains key points on medication use and home-care guidance. At the same time, several elderly people are using fitness equipment in the exercise area while chatting quietly with one another…

This is a familiar scene taking place in a foreign retail pharmacy, and it is also one of the directions that domestic retail pharmacies are exploring right now.

He Yulin, founder and general manager of Beijing He’s Investment Management Co., Ltd., said: “Online drug purchasing brought by e-commerce platforms has diverted nearly 30% of offline customer traffic. Combined with continuously rising rent and labor costs, the industry faces a sharp increase in operating pressure. In the first half of last year alone, more than 15,000 retail pharmacies nationwide closed down. But on the other hand, demand for health services among older adults is rising quickly. This group’s annual average medical spending is 3–5 times that of younger people. Demand in areas such as rehabilitation care and nutrition and health supplements is growing at double-digit rates. The old path of traditional pharmacies relying only on ‘selling medicines’ can no longer continue. The shift from ‘drug retail’ to ‘health services’ is inevitable.”

In He Yulin’s view, some practices abroad may provide reference for the transformation of domestic retail pharmacies.

For example, Japan—one of the world’s most highly aged countries—has already explored a mature “health outpost” model. Its core lies in refined delivery, scenario-based service, and community-based integration, turning the pharmacy into a “second home” that older people can’t do without.

Specifically, this model is built on a business format of a “small supermarket + a large pharmacy.” It deeply integrates fresh food and daily goods retail with professional pharmaceutical services, and connects with primary clinics and regional hospitals and other medical resources. It covers full-scenario services such as chronic disease management, life caregiving, health monitoring, and social companionship, truly achieving the transformation from “only selling medicines” to a “community health service center.”

Worth noting is that this year, the September departments’ issued ‘Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of the Drug Retail Industry’ has for the first time clearly defined pharmacies as a “health outpost” that is close to communities and serves people, thereby pushing the industry to cross over from a “drug sales terminal” to a “comprehensive health service carrier,” and pointing the way forward for the drug retail industry mired in the dilemma of “profit from selling medicines.”

In He Yulin’s view, if traditional retail pharmacies want to achieve transformation, they can lay out silver-age health along three paths: first, strengthen fundamental professional services, such as setting up “senior health corners” and building chronic-disease medication files. At the same time, proactively connect with communities and medical institutions to become key nodes for chronic disease management—for instance, collaborate with nearby community hospitals to take on services such as chronic disease follow-ups and prescription outflow, gradually building an integrated service chain of “hospital—community—pharmacy.” In addition, it is also necessary to optimize the product mix and increase the share of non-drug categories and private-label brands, expanding profit space.

Cheng Yanliang, general manager of the medical business development department at Jiangyu Pingmin Drugstore Chain Co., Ltd., proposed that the “15-minute silver-age health living circle” will be a key focus for China’s next wave of layouts in the drug retail industry.

“In this health living circle, the idea is actually to build a health outpost that focuses on solving two major needs of the elderly group: first, address physical health problems, such as providing professional services including chronic disease management, medication monitoring, and guidance on seeking medical care; second, address mental health problems, with psychological services around seniors’ insomnia, emotional counseling, and other needs taking a very important position, and market demand is very strong.” Cheng Yanliang said.

In addition, reporters from 《Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily》 learned through on-the-ground research that in the full-cycle service system for silver-age health, eye health is a critical component that is easily overlooked but has rigid demand. As the prevalence of dry eye disease, eye strain, and chronic eye diseases continues to rise among older adults, eye-health-related categories may become a new growth blue ocean for retail pharmacies to take on off-campus health management and tap incremental markets.

Liu Yan, market director of Zhejiang Shifangji Medical Pharmaceutical Technology Co., Ltd., believes that preservative-free eye drops will become the core growth direction for retail pharmacies in the eye-health category. She explained that currently, 84% of eye drops on the market contain preservatives. Among them, ingredients such as benzalkonium chloride can damage the cornea and disrupt the stability of the ocular surface membrane. Older adults have lower immune function and more fragile ocular surfaces. Long-term, high-frequency use of preservative-containing eye drops can easily lead to toxic accumulation. For use after eye surgery, it can also affect wound recovery. Therefore, for the silver-age population, choosing preservative-free eye drops is a better option.

From building the overall service system to upgrading specific product categories, silver-age health is undoubtedly driving a deep, large-scale model transformation across the entire drug retail industry.

Company insiders told reporters from 《Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily》 that in the future, pharmacy silver-age health services will develop toward scale, intelligence, and ecosystem-based approaches. And the health outpost is the core entry point for handling chronic disease management, eldercare services, and community health, as well as an important vehicle for responding to the national policy on integrating medicine, prevention, and care.

However, those company insiders also admitted that turning retail pharmacies into truly mature health outposts still has a long road ahead. At present, the industry is still mainly dominated by point-by-point exploration by leading companies. How to step out of scattered pilot projects and build a replicable, promotable, standardized operating model remains a difficult problem the industry needs to solve.

(Reporter from 《Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily》: Shi Shiyun)