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

Ask AI · Can short-term hype solve the industry’s dilemma of relying on a few major single products?

In the report (chinatimes.net.cn) by Yu Wang and Na Yu, Beijing

The news of the well-known education influencer, Zhang Xuefeng, passing away due to sudden cardiac death caused by a cardiac cause has turned the heart health issues of middle-aged and young people into a topic of nationwide concern. As a result, emergency traditional Chinese medicine products for cardiovascular and cerebrovascular treatment, such as Suoxiao Jiuxin pills and Compound Danshen dripping pills, have become the focus of the consumer market. E-commerce platform公开 data show that within a few hours after the incident began to spread, searches for related cardiovascular and cerebrovascular drugs surged by more than 30 times year-on-year. The A-share market’s cardiovascular and cerebrovascular TCM segment also saw unusual short-term trading activity. This wave of consumer heat generated by a health tragedy that shocked the public has pulled the long-dormant cardiovascular and cerebrovascular TCM segment back into the mainstream. However, once the hype fades, the industry’s longstanding stubborn problems—such as over-reliance on major single products, insufficient R&D investment, and an imbalanced expense structure—remain prominent. The growth difficulties faced by leading companies in the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular TCM sector have not been fundamentally changed.

Short-term hype

A sudden health tragedy quickly transformed into a spike in heat on the pharmaceutical consumption end. After related news spread on the evening of March 24, public attention to emergency heart rescue medicines and cardiovascular wellness products grew explosively. Middle-aged and young people’s concentrated demand for emergency backup medication was released all at once, changing the consumption pattern for cardiovascular drugs that had previously been dominated by older adults.

JD.com’s real-time data on purchasing medicine show that starting from the evening of March 24, searches for core heart medicines such as Suoxiao Jiuxin pills and nitroglycerin increased by more than 30 times year-on-year. Searches for medical devices such as AED automatic external defibrillators and ECG and blood oxygen monitoring equipment rose by 10 times month-over-month. Searches for cardiovascular-related wellness products such as coenzyme Q10 and deep-sea fish oil also climbed at the same time. Customer service representatives at multiple online pharmacies told reporters from Huaxia Times that recently, the volume of inquiries and orders for relevant drugs has increased significantly compared with normal days. The capital markets also responded quickly: the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular TCM segment strengthened in the short term, and the share prices of related listed companies saw a modest spike.

As the exclusive manufacturer of Suoxiao Jiuxin pills, Tianjin Tasly Renhetang rose 3.6% this week, while the TCM index fell 3.03% this week. Industry leaders such as Tasly, Buskeng Pharmaceutical, and Yiling Pharmaceutical also gained market attention through their cardiovascular products.

Zhao Heng, founder of the medical strategy consulting firm LatitudeHealth, told reporters from Huaxia Times that this segment rally is a typical example of event-driven short-term volatility, not a change in the industry’s fundamentals. The sustainability of the subsequent hype remains questionable.

Cardiovascular and cerebrovascular TCM is the largest sub-sector in China’s TCM market by scale, with demand that is highly rigid. The market structure has long been highly consolidated. According to data from Minyi Network, in recent years, cardiovascular system TCM products have consistently maintained a scale of more than RMB 90 billion across the three major terminal markets.

In the two core markets—public medical institutions and retail terminals—head companies’ competitive advantages are clear. Exclusive products under Tasly such as Compound Danshen dripping pills, Renhetang’s Suoxiao Jiuxin pills, Shanghai Huaihuang Pharmaceutical’s Shexiang Xinxin pills, Buskeng Pharmaceutical’s Naoxin Tong capsules, and others have long ranked among the top in sales volume. The annual sales revenue of a single major single product can reach several tens of billions. In the first three quarters of 2025, both Tasly’s exclusive product Compound Danshen dripping pills and Renhetang’s Suoxiao Jiuxin pills ranked in the top five positions at the retail terminals.

It is worth noting that this time, market heat is concentrated mainly in the online retail end, and it has a strong “emergency backup medication” attribute. It is not a substantive increase in patients’ long-term medication needs. Zhang Cong, general manager of Zhuoheng Medical Consulting Group, candidly told reporters from Huaxia Times that cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases are mostly chronic conditions that require long-term standardized medication and health management. Therefore, the short-term rush to stock up brought by this sudden event is difficult to convert into a persistent performance increment for companies. As public sentiment gradually calms and health awareness returns to rationality, sales of the relevant drugs and market heat will most likely fall back quickly. It will be hard for the industry to achieve a fundamental reversal by relying on a single public event.

Long-term predicament

After all, short-term market hype cannot conceal the long-term development predicament of the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular TCM industry. In recent years, influenced by multiple factors—including the centralized procurement and price reductions for TCM, tighter control of medical insurance spending, and intensifying competition from the substitution of chemical drugs and biological drugs—the overall industry growth rate has continued to slow down. The performance pressure on many leading companies is obvious. A close look at financial reports of leading companies such as Renhetang and Tasly reveals that issues such as severe reliance on major single products, insufficient R&D investment, high marketing expenses, and weak innovation capability have become the core pain points restricting the industry’s high-quality development. The entire track is currently deep in the dilemma of transformation.

Reliance on major single products is the most common development bottleneck in the industry, and Renhetang is highly representative. As a century-old TCM brand, Renhetang’s performance is highly dependent on Suoxiao Jiuxin pills as its core single product. The data show that in 2024, Renhetang’s pharmaceutical manufacturing revenue was RMB 4.491 billion, of which Suoxiao Jiuxin pills’ sales revenue reached RMB 1.98 billion, accounting for nearly half of the pharmaceutical manufacturing revenue. That year, Suoxiao Jiuxin pills’ sales volume was 56.78 million boxes, while the sales volumes of other medicines were only around the million-box range. The company’s performance trend is thus highly tied to this single product. Even more worth noting is that Suoxiao Jiuxin pills’ growth has already lost momentum: in 2024, sales volume fell by 1.70%, while inventory increased by 81%, and the growth momentum of its main business proved insufficient.

Another leading player on the track, Tasly, is also trapped in a similar development predicament. On the performance level, in 2025 Tasly’s pharmaceutical manufacturing main business revenue was RMB 7.382 billion, down 2.54% year-on-year. Total revenue was RMB 8.236 billion, down 3.08% year-on-year. Non-GAAP net profit excluding non-recurring items was RMB 791 million, down significantly by 23.59%. The company attributed the decline in performance to centralized procurement price cuts and the industry-wide downturn in TCM injections. Tasly’s core product, Compound Danshen dripping pills, has long steadily ranked among the top in market sales volume. In 2025, the product’s revenue was about RMB 3.7 billion, accounting for roughly half of the company’s pharmaceutical manufacturing revenue.

In sharp contrast to the severe reliance on a single product is the industry-wide lack of sufficient R&D investment. Most companies continue the traditional operating model of “heavy sales, light R&D,” with R&D expense ratios far lower than those of chemical drug and biological drug companies.

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

The short-term market heat brought by this event is merely a temporary “recovery” for the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular TCM industry and cannot solve deeply rooted structural problems within the industry. For TCM companies, to achieve long-term and steady development, the only way out of the predicament is to address the shortcomings in R&D and abandon the traditional model of “heavy marketing and light R&D.”

责任编辑：姜雨晴 主编：陈岩鹏