The probiotics bombarded by Rao Yi as “fake medicine” will be destroyed by the group?

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Text | Rickzhang

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On July 26, the public account “Rao Yi Science” made the conclusion in the article that “all probiotics on the market are fake drugs”, which suddenly caused an uproar.

In the article, perhaps because of the hilarious writing, the famous scientist and Internet celebrity popular science V Rao Yi came up with the conclusion that probiotics are completely negative, “All the probiotics currently promoted in China are all fake drugs. The research on intestinal bacteria is very popular. , but no effective drug has been produced so far.”

Due to Rao Yi’s previous successful experience in scientifically cracking down on counterfeiting, as well as his identity as a professor, this public account article quickly became popular in the media circle, and the incident also became the focus of media attention.

In recent years, he has repeatedly attacked counterfeiters, such as reporting fraudulent papers by Li Hongliang of Wuhan University School of Medicine, Pei Gang of Shanghai Institute of Biochemical Cells, and Geng Meiyu of Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica. “Fake Fighter”. He himself often makes serious scientific interpretations of hot topics.

However, most of the reports he had previously reported were “big men” with certain academic achievements. Although he could not really confirm the contents of the report in the end, it still caused shocks in the academic world, which also made him a headache for many managers, scholars and professionals. Role.

It is for this reason that his statement on probiotics has attracted extensive discussions among the industry and consumers: Are probiotics really “fake medicines”? Are Probiotics an IQ Tax? In the comment area of ​​this article, many readers reported that they “paid the IQ tax for probiotics”. On Weibo, some consumers also raised questions.

“Never buy probiotics again” has become the main point of view of many consumers in the Weibo comment area. “After reading the article, I quickly threw away all the probiotic products that I had hoarded for my children at home, for fear of spoiling it,” said a mother.

A stone stirred up a thousand waves. Such market movements have even triggered fluctuations in the stock prices of related companies.

As a result, Rao Yi was also dubbed the public enemy of the “probiotics” industry: one sentence not only evaporated the market value of many listed companies, but also made consumers “abandon” probiotics.

This has changed from an academic crackdown to a crackdown on a separate market. But the real question that still needs to be answered is: Are probiotics “fake drugs”? Is it possible for the probiotics industry to be “killed” because of this?

1

Behind Rao Yi’s bombardment

The reason why the bombardment of probiotics can attract so much attention is because of Rao Yi’s strong professional background.

In the 1980s, Rao Yi studied in the United States and worked in well-known American universities for many years. After returning to China in 2007, he served as the dean of the School of Life Sciences of Peking University. Since then, he has served as the director of the Department of Science of Peking University and a member of the founding board of the West Lake University. Since 2019, he has been the president of Capital Medical University.

About him, there are two things that people are talking about: one is that he announced that he will no longer be a candidate after being elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; the other is that he insists on constantly cracking down on fakes.

Rao Yi has been committed to China’s academic anti-counterfeiting activities. The most famous is his “one arrow and three shots” at the end of 2019, targeting three big figures in the domestic academic circle.

In 2019, Rao Yi reported to the National Natural Science Foundation of China with real names that Professor Li Hongliang of Wuhan University School of Medicine, Pei Gang, Academician of the Institute of Biochemical Cells of Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences, and Researcher Geng Meiyu of Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica were fraudulent, and pushed the topic of “academic fraud”. To the cusp of the storm, it triggered a domestic “academia earthquake”.

Rao Yi said in the report letter, “It is impossible not to cheat” and “please do something good for the Chinese scientific community to wash away the shame”.

However, what is interesting is that on January 21, 2021, the Ministry of Science and Technology issued the “Notice on the Investigation and Handling of Suspected Fraud of Papers”. According to the follow-up review of the Ministry of Science and Technology, it was found that the papers of the three scientists reported by Rao Yi were not suspected of being fraudulent, but some pictures were quoted irregularly and the data processing had corresponding flaws. .

On the night that the Ministry of Science and Technology released the investigation results, Rao Yi expressed his dissatisfaction and sent a report letter to Pei Gang’s academic misconduct to the Ethics Committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. As a result, a few days later, the Ethics Committee of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said, “The Ministry of Science and Technology has concluded, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences will no longer conduct corresponding investigations.”

At that time, the news of Rao Yi’s bombardment of the three well-known scientists was also quickly amplified by media reports, and was well known by readers, who considered him to be the “standard bearer” to challenge academic hegemony and save the academic atmosphere, but the final result was unknown to everyone. How to evaluate Professor Rao Yi’s behavior.

In other words, Professor Rao Yi, who challenged academic injustice in the minds of netizens, may have a big difference with everyone’s perception of the fact that he actually reported the facts.

But Rao Yi still did not stop cracking down on counterfeiting or even speaking out on events that he felt were unreasonable.

In a sense, the accuracy of the voice of this scientist and big internet celebrity has not been evaluated, even if the previous report against the “big man” in the academic world was finally determined to be invalid by the Ministry of Science and Technology. But its impact is immeasurable, sometimes even devastating to an industry.

2

Stupid “probiotics”

In fact, probiotics are not a “bacteria”, but a type of bacteria, that is, bacteria that are beneficial to the human body.

At present, it is generally recognized in the world that this concept was first proposed by the Nobel Prize-winning Russian scientist Mechnikov. He believes that eating fermented dairy products containing lactic acid bacteria can promote health and prolong life, and its mechanism of action is that lactic acid bacteria enter the intestines with food and inhibit harmful bacteria.

Studies on gut microbiota suggest that gut microbes are also an ecosystem, and if harmful bacteria dominate, one type or another of disease may occur, and if the balance of probiotics is ensured, the possibility of acquiring disease will be reduced. According to the corresponding data and scientific research papers, there are more than 400 kinds of probiotics recognized worldwide.

There is currently no definition of “probiotics” at the regulatory level in China, but in practice, the competent health authorities have issued the “List of Bacteria that Can Be Used in Food” and the “List of Bacteria that Can Be Used in Foods for Infants and Young Children”. Form to standardize the use of probiotics by Chinese food and drug companies. The latest version, revised in 2021, stipulates that there are 16 strains available.

There are currently hundreds of probiotic products sold in the Chinese market. Among them, there are very few drugs, and most of the drugs are related to the reconstruction of gastrointestinal probiotics for the treatment of gastroenteritis. Similar to intestinal health, most of the remaining probiotic products are health products or food.

According to data from the China Health Care Association, the overall market size of domestic probiotic products in 2020 is about 87.98 billion yuan. According to Euromonitor International data, the current probiotic consumption market in China has surpassed Italy, ranking second in the world, and is still growing rapidly at an annual rate of 11%-12%.

From the perspective of the entire probiotic industry chain, the current upstream patent applications in the international probiotic industry are mainly monopolized by traditional probiotic development powers such as Russia, Japan, and the United States. The downstream market of the industry chain is relatively competitive, and the products can be mainly divided into three categories: probiotic food, probiotic dietary supplements and probiotic raw materials, accounting for 85.9%, 8.6% and 5.6% respectively.

Under such a market prospect, more and more well-known international companies have poured in, and the probiotics market has already presented a situation of strong competition and a hundred flowers blooming.

my country’s probiotic dietary supplement market, especially the e-commerce channel, is still occupied by foreign brands, and a large number of foreign brands enter the international e-commerce platform for sales. The data shows that the top three sales on Taobao in 2017 are Australian life space, American swanson and Japanese enzyme reperfe, accounting for 65% of the overall market sales.

According to Tmall Health data, as a high-growth vertical track on Tmall, the average growth rate of probiotics in the past three years has exceeded 80%. In June 2022, the average daily search volume of probiotics on Tmall platform increased by 60% year-on-year.

In recent years, my country’s probiotics market has entered a period of rapid development, and major manufacturers and brands have made efforts successively. As far as the current market structure is concerned, it can be roughly divided into four categories. One is the leading nutritional and health care products represented by Tomson By-Health and Jianhe; the other is local R&D enterprises represented by Ketuo Bio and BGI; New consumer brands represented by Wonderlab, Keep, Daily Fungi, etc. The fourth is lactic acid bacteria-related products mainly from dairy enterprises. The product forms corresponding to the four types are different, but they can be roughly divided into dairy products, food and beverages, and dietary supplements.

From the perspective of domestic probiotic dietary supplements or probiotic preparations, high-end brands such as Newmans, Biostime, Huada Gene, Zhongyi Enterprise, and Anli No. 1 mostly use imported strains. In terms of population and efficacy, most of the probiotic bacteria powders are currently used for infants, and the efficacy is mainly based on intestinal regulation. In recent years, professional probiotic companies for multiple groups have gradually emerged.

In addition, Mengniu, Yili, Junlebao, Yakult and other dairy companies have also launched corresponding health food and dairy products in combination with probiotics, which have already successfully opened up the market; Extreme, Livzon, By-Health, etc. have also been in the probiotics market in recent years.

Internationally, in the past year, international giants such as Culturelle from the United States, Osteoform from the United States, Numans from the United States, High Change from France, and Biogaia from Sweden have also increased their investment in the Chinese market, launching products ranging from infants to adults. of probiotic health products, and began to continuously seize market share.

For the lactic acid bacteria market, consumers will have a deeper perception. For example, Yakult, which entered the Chinese market in 2002, has an average daily sales of 7.5 million bottles of this lactic acid bacteria drink in mainland China. All products of Youyi C, a subsidiary of Mengniu, one of the world’s top eight dairy companies, use self-developed Chinese probiotics. After 16 years of R&D, screening of tens of thousands of strains and clinical trials of tens of millions of people, the R&D team of Youyi C has built a rich library of self-developed probiotics.

In a sense, probiotics and even lactic acid bacteria have developed into a huge and mature track. Many international manufacturers have also invested heavily in research and development at the product and technology level.

Therefore, it is unimaginable that such a mature track has been completely denied by a scientist “Internet celebrity” today.

3

well-known public

As a scientist, a well-known and a big V, Rao Yi’s influence is beyond doubt.

After this article on probiotics came out, it quickly caused a shock in the industry. Many consumers commented on Weibo, saying that they would no longer buy probiotics and lactic acid bacteria-related products. Affected by this, the stock prices of related companies fell in response, which has formed a negative shock wave for the industry.

On the same day, the stock prices of related listed companies fell slightly, such as Huada Gene fell 2.39%, Ketuo Bio fell 2.36%, and Rhine Biotech fell 2.79%.

“In the past two days, the entire public relations department has been busy. We have been drawing up various plans and cooperating with the marketing department to appease the distributors who come to the headquarters from all over the world.” People said to the “Bullets of Fortune” that he regretted the current disaster.

“The key is that Mr. Rao Yi’s academic status and Internet celebrity V status are too lethal. The speeches of such well-known scholars are very direct and effective in guiding consumers.” He further introduced: “There are already consumers Leave a message under the company’s ‘Two Weibo’ article to request a return, as an internationally renowned health care product manufacturer, this is the first time we have encountered such a return caused by an online celebrity’s speech.”

Obviously, this incident is almost devastating for probiotic companies. “The company invested heavily in research and development of new products that were originally scheduled to be launched this quarter. Now the corresponding plan has been suspended, and subsequent arrangements may be based on market changes. Set up again.”

And Lin Xi, a senior financial analyst in Hong Kong, believes that many times a word from an Internet celebrity causes fluctuations in the company’s stock price, which is one of the things companies don’t want to see.

“We conducted an in-depth investigation and data collection on this matter, and found that after Mr. Rao Yi’s article came out, the reports and reposts on the corresponding platform within 15 hours have exceeded the data value of the hot search,” he explained. This means that this matter has risen from a simple academic dispute to a public hot event.

Based on the analysis of public opinion data, he believes that the vast majority of those who leave messages under the corresponding reports and reposted articles are probiotic consumers.

“This is a bit too much for a booming industry. Scientists and internet celebrities should be two opposing groups. Science is rigorous. Mr. Rao Yi did not provide enough convincing evidence, or from a medical point of view. “Probiotics are counterfeit drugs,” he said, using the Internet celebrity identity to directly and categorically define it, which obviously goes against the rigorous nature of science.”

The key point is that this developing industry has been affected too much, and the reason is just an imprecise but very absolute “Internet celebrity” assertion. Lin Xi said: “This is a manifestation of the influence of the big V of science and technology, and it is also a particularly unstable factor in this industry.”

The judgment made by Rao Yi in his public identity has dealt a great blow to the probiotics industry, and cast a shadow over the product development and market prospects. It is no exaggeration to say that Rao Yi, as a public figure, has made him a “public enemy of the industry” in one sentence.

So, after this incident, will the probiotics industry be stagnant in the future and eventually turn into the dust of history, or will it overcome difficulties and move on?

This will take time to prove.

The only thing that can be confirmed is that it is not easy to cultivate a new industry, but it may be a matter of a few words to destroy it.

*The title picture in the article comes from: Vision China, based on the RF protocol.

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