Live Coverage of ItBo Expo: Breaking Through the Illusion of Prosperity, Haizheng Animal Health's "Entry" and "Breakthrough"

Ask AI · How Hezheng Animal Health Breaks Through the Young Market Through Collaboration with the Palace Museum?

“Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” May 10th (Reporter Xu Hong) At the scene of the 6th TOPS Expo in 2026, even on just the “Professional Audience Day,” the excitement was already at its peak.

In front of the booth, the line for checking in and receiving souvenirs wound around several times; on the other side, streamers held fill lights and stands, shouting out product introductions amid noisy crowds, with bullet comments scrolling at a speed almost faster than their speech.

“Today is actually only the professional visitor tour day. When the public opens on the weekend, the crowd will be even more exaggerated,” a exhibitor said with a smile in an interview with “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily.”

Some brought their pets as scheduled, just to be the first to learn about the latest products and technologies; others came to catch industry trends. “The most obvious feeling this year is that pet food no longer solely pursues high protein, but pays more attention to natural ingredients and scientific ratios,” said an agent from out of town.

Data shows that in 2024, China’s pet medical market size has risen to about 80 billion yuan; in the next three years, more than 30 million pets will enter middle and old age, opening a new round of growth for the entire industry.

In this “deep water and big fish” track, Hezheng Pharmaceutical (600267.SH) Animal Health segment also delivered a positive report card. The company’s annual report shows that, in 2025, Hezheng Animal Health achieved operating revenue of 533 million yuan and a net profit of 20.13M yuan, turning a profit for the first time after two consecutive years of loss.

Although animal health currently accounts for a small proportion of Hezheng’s overall portfolio, it has maintained high growth for many years. How this veteran pharmaceutical company will build China’s “Shuoteng” in the animal health industry has become a focus of industry attention.

▌The Young Breakthrough of Veteran Pharmaceutical Companies

At this year’s expo, Hezheng Animal Health’s booth showed a different style.

Unlike the uniform product displays, a series of co-branded souvenirs called “New Arrivals at the Palace Museum” became a reason for many visitors to stop and take photos. A staff member casually picked up one and introduced it to the reporter; the cartoon images on it are based on the popular Palace Museum “Imperial Cats” — one called “Papa,” the other “Aobai.”

This move is obviously not just for “looks.” By linking traditional culture and pet IP images, Hezheng Animal Health aims to build an emotional bridge to young pet owners beyond products, using warmer and more recognizable brand expressions to carve out a unique “differentiation.”

Jì Wěi, General Manager of Hezheng Animal Health, told the “Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily” that the company has now formed four major business segments, with pet and international business being the current strategic core and future key focus areas.

“Pet business currently accounts for over 50% of Hezheng Animal Health’s revenue, and this year it is expected to further increase to 60%,” Jì Wěi revealed.

In the field of pet medicines, Hezheng Animal Health has launched a phenomenon-level product — “Hailiao Miao” (Milbemycin oxime tablets). As the only pet drug product in China to surpass 100 million yuan in sales, in 2025, “Hailiao Miao” achieved over 200 million yuan in tax-inclusive sales.

Regarding vaccines, the cat trivalent vaccine “Haimiao Duo,” launched last year, will also be a major highlight this year. Jì Wěi specifically mentioned that this product’s retail price is higher than the imported original “Miaosanduo,” because “it has better craftsmanship and the strains are all sourced from local cats, making it more suitable for Chinese cats.”

This year’s goal for “Haimiao Duo” is to steadily fill gaps in the vaccine segment. He believes that pet health relies on two key components: one is deworming medication, and the other is vaccines. In the future, Hezheng Animal Health will also launch other products such as canine quadrivalent vaccines and rabies vaccines.

Another point of interest is that Hezheng Animal Health’s product matrix is continuously expanding, and product barriers are constantly being raised. This year, 5-6 new products are planned to be launched, including some with special formulations.

However, Jì Wěi also admitted that the overall pet business scale is still not large enough and needs further expansion. A key move this year is a strategic partnership with Zhongyu Pet Food to officially enter the prescription pet food field. The two sides will leverage Hezheng Animal Health’s expertise in pet health and Zhongyu’s advantages in pet food supply chain and industrial manufacturing to develop prescription food products around specific health scenarios.

Data shows that pet food accounts for half of all pet consumption, and in mature foreign markets, prescription food makes up about 25% of the total pet food market. In contrast, China’s penetration rate of prescription pet food is less than 1%, with a market size of just over 1 billion yuan in the approximately 150 billion yuan pet food market. As pet aging accelerates, this niche segment has huge potential.

“The competition in the daily pet food track is already very fierce, mainly concentrated in source factories in Shandong, Henan, and other regions, and we won’t compete on low prices,” Jì Wěi said. The core logic of Hezheng’s entry into prescription food is to combine its advantages in the health sector, focusing on “scenario-based” development, creating synergy with existing medicines, rather than just price wars.

▌The True Threshold Beneath Prosperity

Although the pet economy is booming, the industry is far from as easy as outsiders imagine.

For example, going overseas, Hezheng Animal Health started layout in 2023 and 2024, but it wasn’t until 2025 that the company’s foreign trade business truly broke through, with its product “Hailao Wang” achieving commercialization in Vietnam.

Why is going abroad so difficult? According to Jì Wěi, the core lies in compliance and cultural barriers.

On one hand, unlike pet food and supplies, exporting pet medicines requires passing GMP certifications for each country, with standards that are not interchangeable, meaning each market is a tough nut to crack.

“Like the Vietnam project, we prepared for three years, and for Russia, from 2023 to 2026, the product approval process also took a long time,” Jì Wěi said.

On the other hand, cultural and usage environment differences require companies to constantly adjust details.

He gave an example: for packaging design, domestically, it’s common to print cute cat and dog images on medicine boxes, but in Australia, they care more about “pet welfare,” requiring the images to show cats and dogs “smiling broadly”; similarly, for packaging materials, vaccines exported to Russia need to withstand low temperatures, while Southeast Asian versions must endure high temperatures, forcing companies to upgrade materials accordingly.

“Although each step requires adaptation and adjustment, overall progress is quite solid,” Jì Wěi said.

Regarding overseas strategy, he explained that the company plans to first enter countries along the “Belt and Road,” such as Southeast Asia and Russia, then expand to South America, Africa, the Middle East, and finally Australia, with Europe and America as the ultimate goal. After all, the industry’s top giants mainly sell in Europe and America.

In the domestic market, counterfeit products have long been a headache, damaging consumer rights and severely eroding brand value.

In response, the reporter learned that Hezheng Animal Health has invested heavily in channel optimization over the past few years, making it more aligned with future strategic products and new consumer habits, and restructuring sales networks to squeeze out counterfeit space.

“Integrating online and offline channels has always been a challenge, but we believe that for products like ‘Hailiao Miao,’ deworming medicine, consumer habits will definitely shift online,” Jì Wěi explained. Therefore, in 2023 and 2024, the company decisively promoted channel reforms, including shifting key offline products to cloud warehouses for delivery, and expanding online sales through e-commerce and interest-based platforms.

Thanks to this channel reform, in 2025, Hezheng Animal Health’s e-commerce sales began to surge, with a year-on-year growth of over 85%.

Jì Wěi, who has worked at Hezheng for nearly 20 years and participated almost throughout in the startup and development of the animal health business, deeply understands that animal health is a field that requires accumulation over time; many things require laying a solid foundation, such as optimizing channel networks, which is a typical slow but meticulous process.

“We hope to at least carve out a niche in the animal health field, allowing Chinese brands to compete on the same stage as international giants,” Jì Wěi emphasized. “Our core advantage is our industrial DNA — we use the standards and technology of human medicines to develop pet medicines, which ensures quality control and reliability.”

With the booming pet economy, Chinese pet pharmaceutical companies are trying to step from behind the scenes to the front stage. The road is tough, but as Jì Wěi said, only by laying a solid foundation can they stand firm after the hype subsides.

(Reporter Xu Hong, Cailian Press)