1 yuan can also buy things above 100 yuan, which is not new in the health care product market. Huge profits and poor supervision have led to endless chaos in the health care products market, and the industry is facing an overall credit crisis.

At the end of this month, the Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Health Foods will be issued, which is expected to change the status quo of re-examination and approval of health foods and light supervision. Forward-looking Industry Research Institute believes that with the health food supervision mechanism in place, some speculative enterprises will be integrated in the future, and the industry may usher in an era when technology is king.

The health care industry lacks supervision.

The huge profits of health care products have long been no secret. Huang Fuling, director of the supervision department of health care products and cosmetics of the US Food and Drug Administration in Yunnan Province, said that the profit of health care products can generally reach 100% to 200%, or even higher. Huge profits have lured a large number of profit-seekers into the health care products market, which has led to the repeated prohibition of counterfeit and shoddy products in the whole market and the proliferation of illegal advertisements. The industry is facing a full-scale credibility crisis.

Wu, a researcher in health care industry, Prospective Industry Research Institute, believes that the huge profits of health care products mainly depend on factors such as huge demand, asymmetric product information and poor price supervision.

With the acceleration of China's "aging society", chronic non-communicable diseases such as overeating and fat intake, obesity, non-insulin-dependent diabetes, hypertension and coronary heart disease have become the number one killers of residents' health. According to the report of the World Bank, the proportion of chronic diseases in China is over 80%, so health care products that are beneficial to the prevention and improvement of these diseases are naturally favored.

Market surveys in Beijing, Shanghai and other places show that 93% of children, 78% of the elderly and 50% of young people are consuming health care products, and more than 95% of families always have different types of nutritional health care products. Health food has been included in China's "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" and has become a rigid demand for people to pursue health.

Wu Shuo and health care industry's huge profits mainly lie in circulation. Proportionally, the production cost of health care products is about 10%, the circulation cost is about 10%, and the profits of agents and pharmacies are 30% and 50% respectively.

Judging from the pricing link, the price of health care products is not within the supervision scope of the Price Bureau. As long as the pharmacy indicates the price when selling health care products, it is not suspected of violating the rules. Independent pricing under loose supervision has also become an important reason for the inflated price of health care products.

From the marketing point of view, consumers' cognition of health care products is not complete, and the information of health care products is in an opaque environment, which gives marketers room to exaggerate the facts and raise prices.

Although there are many problems in the industry, in terms of policies, the state has not issued corresponding laws, regulations and regulatory measures. In many product standards, food industry standards or pharmaceutical industry standards are used, and some standards are lagging behind, which has contributed to the chaos in the health care products market to some extent.

The health food industry began to apply departmental regulations in the 1990s, and the closest time was the Measures for the Administration of Health Food Registration. This method was revised on the basis of the last regulation and promulgated by the State Administration of Pharmaceutical Products in 2005. Although it is called registration management, it is actually regulated from registration, examination and approval to the market. However, due to the imperfect industry system, people in the industry believe that the relevant departments act according to the regulations, and there is a problem of re-examination and approval rather than supervision.

In July 2009, the Food Safety Law was promulgated. Article 5 1 of the law stipulates that "the state shall exercise strict supervision over foods that claim to have specific health care functions" and "the relevant supervision and management departments shall perform their duties and assume responsibilities according to law" for health care products. The specific measures for the management of health care products are stipulated by the State Council, but the specific measures have not yet been announced.

The Regulation on the Supervision and Administration of Health Food has been drafted three times since it was studied and formulated in early 2009. The main reason is that there are disputes about the supervision methods and functional labels of health food, which functions must be approved and which functions can be publicized, and the opinions of all parties are different. Jia Yaguang, Deputy Secretary-General of china health care association, said, "In the past, standards were formulated without listening to the opinions of enterprises. Now we pay special attention to the feedback from enterprises, and as a result, all parties are arguing. "

In Wu Shuo, the supervision of health care products is as important as drugs and food. The regulatory authorities should take action to strengthen the supervision of health care products and conduct a comprehensive clean-up of the whole industry from personnel to varieties, so as to maintain the market order of health care products and help the healthy development of the industry.

Who will be integrated?

Fortunately, it is reported in china health care association that the Regulation on the Supervision and Administration of Health Food (hereinafter referred to as the Regulation), which took nearly three years, may be promulgated at the end of this month or early next month. This is the first national administrative regulation of China's health food industry, which is expected to change the status quo of heavy examination and approval but light supervision of health food.

The regulation was led by the Legislative Affairs Office of the State Council and drafted by the State Administration of Pharmaceutical Products, with the participation of health associations, health food enterprises and experts. The new regulations have greatly improved the market access threshold, simplified the examination and approval procedures, made the examination and approval process more transparent, and made corresponding adjustments in supervision and punishment, with greater intensity than before.

Xu Huafeng, secretary general of china health care association, said that since 1996, there are about 1 1000 kinds of health products approved by the government. After the promulgation of the regulations, at least 2000 products will not be sold. With the strengthening of examination and approval supervision and the improvement of entry threshold, some speculative enterprises will be integrated in the future.

Foresight Industry Research Institute's Forecast and Analysis Report on Production and Marketing Demand and Investment of China Nutrition health care industry shows that although the scale of domestic health care industry is expanding, the enterprises are "small and scattered". Among the more than 3,000 health food enterprises in China, only 2% are large enterprises with a total investment of more than 654.38 billion yuan, and more are enterprises with an investment of 654.38 billion yuan or less, accounting for 50% of all production enterprises.

Wu predicts that by the end of the 12th Five-Year Plan, nearly half of these 3,000 enterprises will be merged.

At the same time, according to the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" of nutrition and health food, by the end of 438+05 in 2065, the output value of nutrition and health food in China will reach 1 trillion yuan, with an average annual growth rate of 20%, with huge market potential.

It is worth noting that at present, the proportion of people's consumption on health care products is much lower than that in developed countries. In the average consumption of European and American countries, the consumption of health care products accounts for more than 25% of the total expenditure, while that of China is only 0.07%. The per capita consumption of health care products is about 3 1 yuan, which is 1/7 in the United States and112 in Japan.

"One of the main reasons is that the overall technical level of the industry is not high." Zhang Fenglou, chairman of china health care association, said, "In recent years, although the investment in science and technology has been increased and the level of science and technology has been continuously improved, the overall strength and scientific research level are extremely disproportionate to the speed of industrial development. The specific performance is that the scientific and technological strength of enterprises is weak, the independent innovation ability is not strong, and the investment in science and technology is insufficient, resulting in low scientific and technological content of products, low-level repetition, serious homogenization and aging, and lack of core competitiveness. "

The data show that the scientific research expenditure of health care products enterprises in developed countries accounts for 6% to 10% of the profits, while the investment of many enterprises in China is less than 1% of the profits, and the investment in scientific research is obviously insufficient. Now, the competition in health care industry has been divorced from the era of hype concept. Whoever leads in scientific and technological innovation will win the market to a great extent.

Wu believes that with the health food supervision mechanism in place, the whole industry is expected to usher in a broad space for benign development. Although the whole industry will face a process of re-integration, in this process, some leading enterprises will increase investment and optimize resources through mergers and acquisitions, thus occupying a more important position in the industry. In the future, the core of health care products competition will be technological innovation, and high-tech products will become the mainstream. (Food Industry Network Analyst Guan Yingwei)