As consumers pay more attention to health & safety when buying cosmetics in the post-pandemic era, the enter and rise of pharmaceutical companies in the cosmetic industry seems inevitable. Their products usually gain more trust because pharmaceutical companies have a natural advantage on products’ efficacy and technology used during the production.
Bayer (Germany)
Bayer Group, a German multinational pharmaceutical and life sciences company, launched a new skincare brand, Bellerain, whose slogan is “Using pharmaceutical experience to make skincare products.” As a product line targeting sensitive skin, it focuses on much smaller categories, such as body lotion for tattooed people and care products for the skin around nails. Now, this brand has opened its Douyin store, and its Tmall store is also on its way.
Bellerain’s product
Kwangdong Pharmaceutical (Korea)
Kwangdong Pharmaceutical, one of the top3 Korean pharmaceutical companies, also promoted a functional skincare brand in 2015, CENTELLIAN. In the past, K-beauty’s main selling point is “healthy, natural, and affordable,” and most products’ functions only cover moisturizing, leading to K-beauty’s weak competitiveness in the market. CENTELLIAN wants to change the positioning by expanding its functions to whitening and freckle removal. This brand entered the Chinese market in 2019. Although it is still in the first stage, it has developed a reputation among dsistributors.
CENTELLIAN’s products
PIEN TZE HUANG (China)
Among all Chinese pharmaceutical companies in the cosmetic industry, PIEN TZE HUANG is the most successful one. Its cosmetic sector’s sales reached 905.1822 million yuan, and its cosmetic Tmall store has more than 2.07 million followers. PIEN TZE HUANG’s skincare brands, PIEN TZE HUANG and Empress, mainly target middle-aged women in China. It didn’t launch many marketing campaigns, but many middle-aged customers still trust it because of word-of-mouth recommendations.
PIEN TZE HUANG’s products
Empress’s products
Renhe Pharmaceutical (China)
Renhe Pharmaceutical, another famous pharmaceutical company in China, has made many efforts in the cosmetic industry in recent years. It nurtures three brands to tap into this market, including Yaodu Renhe, Renhe Jiangxin, and Zhicaiji.
Yaodu Renhe is a brand mainly selling health foodand is also involving in the skincare sector (50 health food SKUs vs 2 skincare product SKUs). However, this brand’s eye care essence is now the ace product of Renhe Pharmaceutical. Renhe Jiangxin is the main skincare brand promoted by the parent company. It now has over 40 SKUs covering facial masks, hand cream, eye cream, lotion, etc. Zhicaiji is a new skincare brand that entered the market in March 2021 and only has 5 SKUs now.
Renhe Pharmaceutical opened a Tmall store named Yaodu Renhe, which sells products from Yaodu Renhe and Renhe Jiangxin and now has more than 700,000 followers.
Yaodu Renhe’s eye cream
Renhe Jiangxin’s product
ZHICAIJI’s product
MAYINGLONG (China)
Ma Ying Long is a pharmaceutical brand famous for its musk hemorrhoids ointment. It launched its first eye cream in 2009 and founded a beauty company in 2012 to officially enter the cosmetic market. Now its eye care brand, PRETALE (瞳话), has 249,000 followers on Tmall.
PRETALE’s eye cream
SINOPHARM ZHIJUN (China)
SINOPHARM ZHIJUN is one of the top pharmaceutical companies in China and also one of the manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines, proving its expertise in the pharma industry. It started to tap into the cosmetic industry ten years ago by developing skincare products. In recent years, it began to launch skincare products series. Its ace product is a facial mask and an essence.
SINOPHARM ZHIJUN’s products
