Pien Tze Huang Enters Daxing: Seeking Medical Beauty Expansion and Performance Recovery?

21st Century Business Herald Reporter Tang Weike

On March 10, the Beijing Public Resources Trading Service Platform announced that Pianzaihuang (Beijing) Health Technology Development Co., Ltd. won a bid of 80.13 million yuan to acquire an industrial land parcel in Beijing Daxing Biopharmaceutical Industry Base, planning to build the Pianzaihuang Northern Health Big Data Project.

Public information shows that the project has a total investment of 754 million yuan, covers approximately 53.4 acres, with a construction area of about 55,000 square meters. It is scheduled to start construction in October 2026 and be completed and put into operation by April 2028. Once operational, the annual output value is expected to reach 1.18 billion yuan.

As a leading enterprise in the traditional Chinese medicine industry, industry analysts interpret Pianzaihuang’s land acquisition in the north as not only an important move in the company’s nationwide capacity layout but also a key step in expanding into the medical aesthetics sector and promoting diversified transformation. All these strategic moves are happening amid the company’s phased performance pressure, with the results of medical aesthetics expansion and performance recovery still to be tested by the market.

Accelerated Expansion in Medical Aesthetics

The Daxing industrial land acquired is located in the core area of the “China Medicine Valley,” which hosts over 800 biopharmaceutical companies and 12 national research institutes. This area covers promising sectors such as medical aesthetics and health, and is an important part of Pianzaihuang’s strategy to build a “dual-base” in the south and north. The core purpose is to leverage Beijing’s research talent advantages and the radiation capacity of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei market to address the company’s shortfalls in production, supply chain, and R&D in the northern market, while also providing capacity support for expansion in the medical aesthetics segment.

It is noteworthy that this land acquisition is not Pianzaihuang’s only recent move in the medical aesthetics field. Its expansion in this sector has already formed a multi-dimensional push involving capacity layout, product deployment, and organizational building.

Public information indicates that Pianzaihuang (Beijing) Health Technology Development Co., Ltd., the project implementation entity, was established in December 2025 with a fully paid-in capital of 90 million yuan by Fujian Pianzaihuang Cosmetics Co., Ltd., which is the core technical support entity for Pianzaihuang’s medical aesthetics-related business. In December 2025, Pianzaihuang Medical Devices launched Findyoung Miao White Recombinant Collagen Patches, debuting at the Guangzhou International Beauty Fair with a new water silk membrane material, entering the medical aesthetic dressing track. The product aims to open up the market with features like super absorbency and high permeability, backed by Pianzaihuang’s accumulated technology in cosmetics.

A mid-sized analyst from South China told 21st Century Business Herald that Pianzaihuang’s core capacity was previously concentrated in Zhangzhou, Fujian, with a market layout mainly in the south. The establishment of a northern base will improve its “R&D - production - market” integrated layout, shorten logistics radius in the northern market, and leverage regional scientific research resources to promote new businesses such as medical aesthetic devices and high-end health products. “However, whether these new businesses can generate effective incremental growth still depends on product R&D progress, market acceptance, and capacity release pace. Competition in the medical aesthetic devices and dressings sectors is intensifying, with both specialized device companies and cross-industry entrants. As a traditional Chinese medicine company entering this field, Pianzaihuang faces challenges such as technology adaptation and brand recognition transformation.”

From an industry perspective, extending into health and medical aesthetics has become a common trend among Chinese traditional medicine companies. According to Frost & Sullivan data, the Chinese medical aesthetics market is projected to reach 638.2 billion yuan by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 14.5% from 2021 to 2030. The high-margin, high-growth medical aesthetics sector is becoming a key battleground for pharmaceutical companies’ transformation.

Besides Pianzaihuang, companies like China Resources Sanjiu and Buchang Pharmaceuticals have also entered the medical aesthetics field. Companies such as Jiuzhoutong and Lepu Medical have improved performance through increased investment in medical aesthetics. However, most are still in the deployment stage and have not yet established mature profit models. Pianzaihuang’s expansion into medical aesthetics faces similar industry-wide challenges.

Additionally, Pianzaihuang’s cosmetics business has laid a foundation for its medical aesthetics expansion. Data from the first half of 2025 shows that its cosmetics gross margin reached 61.45%, close to its core liver disease medication gross margin. The Queen’s Pearl Cream sales increased by over 60% year-on-year. However, the revenue scale of this segment remains relatively limited, and whether it can sustainably support the expansion of the medical aesthetics segment remains to be seen.

Performance Under Pressure, a Turning Point to Be Seen

Pianzaihuang’s recent land acquisition in Daxing and its increased focus on the medical aesthetics sector come at a time when the company is experiencing phased performance pressure and accelerating strategic adjustments.

Previous financial reports show that in the first three quarters of 2025, Pianzaihuang achieved a total operating revenue of 7.442 billion yuan, down 11.93% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders was 2.129 billion yuan, down 20.74%. This marks the first decline in both revenue and net profit in nearly 20 years. The performance decline is driven by rising raw material costs and high channel inventory levels.

An analyst explained to the reporter that the main factors constraining Pianzaihuang’s performance are: first, the sharp increase in the price of its core raw material, natural bovine bile, which rose from 800,000 yuan/kg to 1.65 million yuan/kg, squeezing profit margins and causing the company’s overall gross margin to decline by 6.51 percentage points to 38.93%. Although revenue from core liver disease drugs grew by 9.7%, operating costs increased by 52.98%, leading to a 10.89% drop in gross margin. Second, high channel inventory and slowed terminal sales have temporarily suppressed revenue.

Currently, some positive signals are emerging in the industry: in Q3 2025, Pianzaihuang’s quarterly net profit margin rebounded to 33.21%, showing some improvement; since 2026, the price of natural bovine bile has fallen back to 550,000–600,000 yuan/kg, easing raw material cost pressures.

The analyst noted, “Cost relief provides a basis for performance recovery, but the progress of channel destocking and terminal demand recovery remains uncertain. Whether the company can return to growth in 2026 still requires further observation. As its key new direction, the medical aesthetics sector is unlikely to support performance in the short term and will depend on product innovation and market expansion in the long term.”

From a core competitiveness perspective, Pianzaihuang’s key products are national first-class protected traditional Chinese medicines, with a permanently secret formula and control over the core quota of natural musk, creating certain barriers in raw material supply. The brand has long-term accumulation in the healthcare field. However, short-term performance fluctuations also reflect a high dependence on a single core product, with diversified businesses not yet providing effective support, and channel management still needing optimization. Its increased focus on the medical aesthetics sector is an attempt to break away from reliance on a single product and seek new growth points, but from product deployment to achieving scaled profitability, a longer cycle is required.

Currently, the Chinese medicine industry is undergoing structural adjustments. The “sky-high hype and dependence on single products” model is gradually receding, with branding, technological innovation, and health-oriented development becoming the main themes of industry transformation. Industry insiders believe that Pianzaihuang’s move into Daxing and its expansion into medical aesthetics are important measures to cope with industry changes and overcome development bottlenecks. However, the actual effectiveness of capacity optimization and medical aesthetics expansion still needs time to be verified, and the transformation path of leading Chinese medicine enterprises still faces many challenges.

Meanwhile, although the northern market shows some growth potential—with Pianzaihuang’s gross margins in Northwest, North China, and Northeast regions increasing in the first half of 2025, with Northwest revenue up by 54.10%—the combined revenue share of these three regions is only 9.13%, indicating ongoing difficulties in market development.