Hyaluronic acid leading each other: IP rights become more important

Recently, Huaxi Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Huaxi Bio") issued an "open letter to consumers", publicly condemning Shandong Furui Da Bioengineering Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Fruida") to borrow " The false name of "Huaxi" misleads consumers.

Subsequently, Furui Da issued an "Open Letter" to respond, emphasizing that the two parties are no longer related, but did not respond positively to its promotional content.

The reporter learned that Huaxi Biology and Furuida "go out of the same class", and the two companies have no shortage of business contacts. For this dispute, the reporter contacted Huaxi Biology and Furui Da for interviews. As of press time, neither of them has responded to the reporter.

There is a view that at present, with the development of the cosmetics industry and the increasing demand of consumers for moisturizing and moisturizing, the hyaluronic acid market is showing a substantial growth trend. With the rise of industry leaders and the entire market facing integration, intellectual property issues are particularly important.

Intellectual property rights

It is understood that Huaxi Bio said in the "Open Letter" that the product of "Fredida" Sodium Hyaluronate Mask was promoted in some Taobao skincare stores and WeChat friends circle, and mentioned "Fredida is the Chinese "Xi" "Huaxi pays money, Shandong Furuida is responsible for the technology and products" "The products of hydrolyzed sodium hyaluronate used by Runbaiyan, Jianhuo, Demarun, and Mi Beier can all be said to come from Shandong Furui "Da" and other relevant wordings, to explain this to avoid misleading consumers.

Among them, Huaxi Bio has repeatedly stressed that it does not matter whether it is the company's main body, actual controller, personnel, brand, or product research and development technology. This operation of Fruida is false propaganda and unfair competition. Huaxi Biorequires Shandong Fruida related e-commerce stores and social media to delete the relevant information immediately, otherwise it will be held responsible.

The next day, Furui Da issued an "Open Letter" to respond. In addition to promoting itself, it did not give a positive explanation for the promotion content of some e-commerce stores and social media. The reporter noticed that the false propaganda situation in the previously mentioned Taobao store could not be found.

Bai Yunhu, a senior consultant of Shanghai Cuimei Investment Management Co., Ltd., said: "Huaxi Biotechnology, as a listed company, has a higher requirement for intellectual property protection. Frederick did not give a clear attitude. Personally, this is precisely the one taken This is a more conservative approach. The competition between the two companies at the hyaluronic acid level actually affects the entire industry. To resolve similar conflicts, first of all, it should be more detailed and complete on the level of national intellectual property protection. The overall measures of intellectual property rights are becoming more and more strict, and there may be a good solution for this kind of thing afterwards. What is lacking now is such an authoritative judgment of the industry ’s own association or official agency, and the enterprise itself should also positively solve Respond to such questions. "

According to Tianyan check, before this, Fruida has violated the "Anti-Unfair Competition Law" for false propaganda, and has been administratively punished by the Jinan High-tech Zone Market Supervision Bureau for several times.

Gao Jianfeng, founding partner of Bogai & Accommodation Consulting, said: "Shandong is actually an industrial cluster of hyaluronic acid products, including Freda and Huaxi Bio. From this perspective, it actually reflects China's concentration in the industrial chain. There are often areas of ambiguity in intellectual property rights. With the gradual formation of the market pattern, leading companies hope to integrate and reshuffle the entire industry, and intellectual property issues will be amplified. "

"In recent years, the development of Huaxi Biological has been very strong. Now Freda is equivalent to catching up with Huaxi Biological, and it will be a bit overdone in publicity. However, this so-called unfair competition is just a process, and the overall pattern of the hyaluronic acid industry has formed After that, it will be regulated a lot. "Gao Jianfeng thinks.

According to public information, the two companies had "from the same door", and their disputes about shareholding changes, core technologies, and business transactions are quite complicated. This is not difficult to understand why Frederick has to compete with Huaxi Biology in its promotion. relative".

According to the Huaxi Biological Prospectus, Huaxi Biological was originally Huaxi Fruida Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. and before that was Shandong Fruida Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd., which was established by Huaxi International Investment Group Co., Ltd. and Shandong in 1998. Founded in cooperation with Furuida Pharmaceutical Group Company; in the same year, Shandong Furuida Pharmaceutical Group also established Furuida Meiye, which is mainly engaged in the research, development, production and sales of cosmetics with hyaluronic acid as the main raw material. It can be seen that the two have belonged to the Frederick Pharmaceuticals.

After several shareholding changes, until December 2017, Shandong Furuida Biopharmaceutical Co., Ltd. completed its shareholding change and changed its name to Huaxi Biotechnology Co., Ltd., the cutting was completed, and the shareholding divestiture was realized.

The reporter learned that the two companies are not lacking in business contacts. According to the Prospectus of Huaxi Biotechnology, Shandong Furuida Biotechnology Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Furuida Pharmaceutical Group, supplied Huaxi Biotechnology with a crude hyaluronic acid worth 20.39 million yuan in 2018. The product has insufficient short-term production capacity. It purchases crude hyaluronic acid from the above suppliers and sells it after further refining and processing. In addition, in 2018, Huaxi Biotechnology sold 39.31 million yuan of hyaluronic acid raw materials to Furui Da Group and related companies.

In addition, the core technology sources of the two also have an inseparable relationship. Huaxi Biological's core technology source for producing hyaluronic acid is Shandong Biopharmaceutical Research Institute, and part of its core technical staff comes from Shandong Biopharmaceutical Research Institute. In 2001, Furui Da bought out the initial technology of producing medicinal hyaluronic acid by fermentation method from Shandong Provincial Institute of Biomedicine with a project transfer fee of 450,000 yuan. It is worth noting that Shandong Provincial Institute of Biomedicine is the predecessor of Shandong Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, which is currently affiliated with Lushang Group, and Lushang Group is the actual controller of Furui Damei.

It can be seen that although the two are now unrelated, the development process is indeed inseparable. So far, the two have made achievements in the field of hyaluronic acid. Gao Jianfeng told reporters: "Hyaluronic acid products are a particularly explosive star product in the medical industry and cosmetics industry, and its profit margin is particularly high and the growth rate is also very fast. The Lushang Group, which is part of Freda, is the oldest Enterprises have deeper qualifications; and Huaxi Biotechnology has developed very strongly in recent years, in addition to making raw materials, it also promotes a large number of end products, including cosmetics, facial masks, and medical end products. "

Public information shows that Huaxi Bio is currently in the leading position in the hyaluronic acid industry and occupies the largest market share in the world. As early as 1986, Freda started its research on hyaluronic acid in its predecessor, Shandong Provincial Institute of Commercial Science and Technology, and then achieved transparency. The breakthrough in the industrialization of acid microbial fermentation technology is regarded as the originator of hyaluronic acid in China.

Hyaluronic acid wave

"As a moisturizing and moisturizing ingredient, hyaluronic acid is widely used in the cosmetics industry. With the development of the cosmetics industry and the increasing consumer demand for moisturizing and moisturizing, the entire market has a great growth trend. The current domestic hyaluronic acid market is very large It is a great opportunity for companies that do raw material supply chain. "Bai Yunhu said.

According to Frost & Sullivan's survey report, China's total sales of hyaluronic acid raw materials accounted for 86% of global sales in 2018. It is expected that the global hyaluronic acid raw material market will maintain a high compound growth rate of 18.1% in the next 5 years in 2023 Reached 1150 tons of market sales, and the top 5 companies in the global hyaluronic acid raw material sales are all from Shandong Province, of which Huaxi Biotechnology accounted for 36% of the global hyaluronic acid raw material sales.

Gao Jianfeng believes that the domestic hyaluronic acid products and technologies were not particularly mature, the cost was relatively high, and it did not meet the foreign standards. But in recent years, the technological content and technical content of hyaluronic acid in China have not been much different from South Korea, Japan, Europe and America. In fact, the development of hyaluronic acid has a benchmark meaning for domestic daily chemical companies, which helps companies to truly use R & D thinking to lead, seek breakthroughs from the technical route, and thus promote the development of domestic daily chemical skin care products.

It is understood that Huaxi Biological has many brand series such as Runbaiyan, BM Muhuo, Silke, Mibeier, Runyueya, Quadi and Demarun. According to the annual report disclosed by Huaxi Biology on April 29, the total operating income in 2019 was 1.89 billion yuan, an increase of 49.3% year-on-year; the net profit attributable to the mother was 590 million yuan, an increase of 38.2% year-on-year.

While Freda on the other side is slightly "low-key", but its strength should not be underestimated. Frida has 35 years of scientific research technology, focusing on hyaluronic acid research and development, mainly engaged in cosmetics-related research and development, production and sales. Its brands Dr. Alva, Yilian, Shanyan and other brands are deeply loved by consumers. Its founder Ling Peixue is known For "the father of hyaluronic acid".

Although bumping is indispensable in the process of development, a good market environment still needs to be jointly maintained. It is undesirable to seek market through false propaganda and mislead consumers, which not only infringes consumer rights but also breaks The normal order of competition in the market.

Gao Jianfeng believes that hyaluronic acid is a technology-leading product, not a simple cosmetic. It should achieve the product power, channel power and brand power. Especially now it is mainly offline channels, but under the epidemic environment, the role of online channels is very large, so the operation of all channels is very important. On the whole, it is still necessary to proceed from oneself, not to compete unfairly.

From the perspective of long-term interests, an enterprise must stand out for its scientific research strength and brand reputation, and speculation is unreliable. "In the past, the biggest competitiveness of domestic cosmetics was not the brand itself but marketing, but in the long run, we should pay more attention to technology research, brand value, and consumer research. This is the fundamental strategy for building a brand for a longer period of time, but it is also precisely It is a challenge in the development process. "Bai Yunhu said.