The record behind the argument for honest promotion

Mandate

Prepare Tanqiao's first innovative launch and rebuild a generics marketing model that volume-based procurement had overtaken.

Outcomes

• Launched the IL-17A antibody in October 2023; sales reached RMB 860 million in 2025, its first reimbursed year.
• Grew hospital listings from 110 specialist centres to 1,140 hospitals, plus 380 designated pharmacies, by June 2026.
• Ended 3,800 sponsored department meetings a year; promotional and educational spending fell from RMB 640 million (2022) to RMB 260 million (2025).
• Built a patient support programme that enrolled 23,400 patients, with 63 per cent twelve-month persistence among them.
• Stopped promotion of seventeen molecules won in procurement rounds and redirected RMB 190 million.

Decisions in context

Tanqiao hired me in April 2021 to prepare its first innovative launch and to rethink a generics marketing model that volume-based procurement had overtaken. I report to the chief executive, Gao Shiwen, and present launch, pricing and negotiation plans to the board's strategy committee. My 260 colleagues cover brand marketing, market access and pricing, patient services, and channel and digital work, through seven direct reports; the field force reports to our head of sales and scientific exchange to medical affairs. External events set the order of work: procurement outcomes in 2021 and 2022, the approval of our IL-17A antibody in August 2023, the intensified anti-corruption campaign that summer, the reimbursement negotiation in late 2024 and the spondylitis indication in 2025. By 2025 company revenue had recovered to RMB 6.14 billion, with RMB 860 million from the antibody.

Reason for the move

Current role. Not seeking an executive move; considering one independent directorship with the consent of Tanqiao's board.

Mandate

Build a prescription refill service for patients with long-term conditions that met the rules for online prescription review and dispensing.

Outcomes

• Grew refill membership from 90,000 to 1.1 million.
• Kept 58 per cent of members refilling after six months.
• Ensured a licensed pharmacist reviewed every prescription before dispatch, with a published review time.
• Persuaded the board to limit paid placement to non-prescription products and disease education.

Decisions in context

Shuiyun Health hired me to build a service for patients who need the same prescription medicines every month. The company already ran an online pharmacy and an internet hospital, but chronic-disease patients used it occasionally and unpredictably. With a team of 85, I designed a refill service in which a patient renewed a prescription with a doctor online, a licensed pharmacist reviewed it before anything was dispatched, and the medicine arrived from one of three warehouses. Membership grew from 90,000 to 1.1 million, and 58 per cent of members were still refilling after six months. I presented to the board every quarter. My most difficult argument there was against selling manufacturers prominent placement for prescription medicines, which would have brought revenue and, I believed, the wrong kind of influence over what patients saw. The board limited such placement to non-prescription products and disease education.

Reason for the move

Wanted to launch a medicine rather than dispense other companies' products; Tanqiao offered its first innovative launch.

Mandate

Launch an imported anti-TNF biologic for psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis and grow the dermatology portfolio.

Outcomes

• Launched the biologic in 2014; it reached RMB 420 million of sales in 2017.
• Set up nurse-led injection training and follow-up in 48 hospitals.
• Grew business-unit revenue from RMB 520 million in 2012 to RMB 1.1 billion in 2017.
• Introduced documented needs assessments for every sponsored meeting in the unit.

Decisions in context

In 2013 I became marketing director for Ostervik China's immunology and dermatology business unit, reporting to the general manager, Pieter Valkenborg, with a team of 34 and close work with a sales force of 420. Our central task was the 2014 launch of an imported anti-TNF biologic for psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis. Patients paid for it themselves, many stopped within months, and the commercial plan assumed far better persistence than the early data showed. I moved a significant share of the launch budget into nurse-led injection training and follow-up calls in 48 hospitals, which our regional headquarters questioned until persistence improved. The business unit's revenue grew from RMB 520 million in 2012 to RMB 1.1 billion in 2017. I left because I believed chronic care was moving partly online and I wanted to see a prescription from the patient's side.

Reason for the move

Believed chronic care was moving partly online and wanted to see the patient's side of a prescription.

Mandate

Grow a topical dermatology portfolio sold through hospital departments and retail pharmacies near large hospitals.

Outcomes

• Grew portfolio revenue from RMB 210 million to RMB 380 million.
• Built an education programme for county-hospital dermatologists in nine provinces.
• Moved a third of brand spending from hospital events to pharmacist training near major hospitals.

Decisions in context

I joined Ostervik China's Shanghai office in January 2008 as senior product manager for its topical dermatology portfolio, and became group product manager in 2010. The portfolio included corticosteroid creams and a topical vitamin D analogue combination for psoriasis, sold through hospital dermatology departments and, increasingly, through retail pharmacies near large hospitals. With a team that grew to six, I rebuilt our education materials for dermatologists in county hospitals, who saw many psoriasis patients but rarely had access to specialist training. Portfolio revenue grew from RMB 210 million to RMB 380 million. I also learnt the subsidiary's compliance discipline: needs assessments for meetings, fee bands for speakers and a medical reviewer who could stop any material. I studied part-time for an executive MBA at Yanlan School of Management alongside the role, completing it in 2011.

Reason for the move

Promoted to marketing director for the business unit ahead of its first biologic launch.

Mandate

Modernise a cold-remedy granule and an herbal ointment whose sales had flattened.

Outcomes

• Grew the two brands' sales from RMB 216 million to RMB 290 million.
• Rewrote television and pharmacy materials so every claim matched the approved indications.
• Built counter-staff training that reached about 3,000 pharmacies.

Decisions in context

Cuiwei Tang is a family-owned maker of traditional Chinese medicines in Suzhou. I managed two of its non-prescription brands: a granule for the common cold and an herbal ointment for minor burns and insect bites, together worth RMB 216 million of sales when I arrived. Both were sold mainly through pharmacy chains and independent pharmacies across eastern China, where the counter assistant's recommendation often decided the purchase. I rewrote television and pharmacy materials so that every claim matched the approved indications, replacing broader wording that had accumulated over the years, and built a training programme for counter staff that reached about 3,000 pharmacies. Sales of the two brands reached RMB 290 million in 2007. I left to work on prescription medicines, where claims rest on clinical trials and the audience is a specialist who will question them.

Reason for the move

Wanted to work on prescription medicines, where claims rest on clinical trials and the audience is a specialist.

Mandate

Grow the company's antibiotic sales in fourteen Hangzhou hospitals.

Outcomes

• Grew territory sales from RMB 3.1 million to RMB 7.4 million a year.
• Promoted to senior representative in 2001 and trained six new colleagues.
• Added the company's injectables to the formularies of three district hospitals.

Decisions in context

I joined Jianyu Pharmaceutical a month after graduating, as a hospital representative for its generic antibiotics in Hangzhou. My territory covered fourteen hospitals, from two large teaching hospitals to several district hospitals, and I became a senior representative in 2001 with responsibility for training new colleagues. The work taught me how Chinese hospitals bought medicines: through tendering, pharmacy committees and departmental preferences, with the patient rarely present in the conversation. Representatives were paid mainly on their hospitals' purchases, and the relationships expected of us were often closer to hospitality than to pharmacology. Sales in my territory grew from RMB 3.1 million to RMB 7.4 million a year. I left in 2003 because I did not want my income to depend on a doctor's prescribing, and because I wanted to understand how patients chose medicines for themselves.

Reason for the move

Did not want income tied to doctors' prescribing, and wanted to learn how patients choose medicines for themselves.