In 2020, the COVID-19 Pandemic broke out and spread all over the world. As of December 2022, it lasted three years and the “10 Ten Measures” for Epidemic Prevention and Control was released. The three years have not only had a huge impact on China's economy and all walks of life, but also dealt a heavy blow to people's confidence. In 2020, China‘s GDP growth rate was only 2.1%, the lowest in the past decades. At of today, COVID-19’s virulence becomes weaker, but the endless three years of fighting against COVID-19 made everybody feel tired.

Dine-in restaurant industry was hit hardest. Restaurant industry is an industry for people to get together. Because of the COVID-10 restrictions in China, people were not allowed to eat together, especially in the year of 2020 when the COVID-10 Pandemic just started. At that time, a lot of cities in China were locked down and all Chinese people cooperated and chose to quarantine at home, so many Chinese restaurants could not run properly and some restaurants were closed or transferred to new owners. Therefore, many restaurant workers had the risk of being fired or losing their jobs. 

 Tourism industry was the second hardest hit industry by the COVID-19 break. The negative impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on tourism industry is self-evident because of travel restrictions that started from international restrictions, cross-provincial restrictions to cross-city restrictions. According to Brand Value (China ) Network, domestic travel decreased by 50%, and more than 10,000 travel companies closed their business for good, which also meant many people in the related hotel industry, food industry and transportation industry lost their jobs, lower their incomes, and suffered heavy losses accordingly. 

The COVID-19 Pandemic also had a great impact on manufacturing industry. In the year of 2020 when the COVID-19 Pandemic just started, the global manufacturing industry also began to get worse. European manufacturing PMI fell by11.4% to 33.6% from the previous month, hitting a record low. In April 2020, USA Manufacturing PMI dropped by 9% to 39.7% from the previous month, below 50% for two consecutive months and a significantly big drop compared with the previous month. In April 2020, Africa manufacturing PMI fell by 6.5% to 40.9% from the previous month, and a fall for four straight months. In April 2020, Asia manufacturing PMI fell by 5% to 43.8%, a continuous decline. In addition, according to Brand Value (China) Network, the global manufacturing PMI in December 2022 was 48.6%, below 50% for three consecutive months.  Therefore, the global economy is expected to be weak in the short term. As of December, 2022, European manufacturing PMI was 48.2%, below 50% for five consecutive months. USA manufacturing PMI was 48.4%, below 50% for two consecutive months; Asian manufacturing PMI was 49%, lower than 50% for two consecutive months. Based on the statistics, the downward trend of global economy has not changed significantly.

Although the COVID-19 Pandemic has had a great impact on many industries, it has also brought opportunities and benefits to some industries, including medical and health care products, medicine and other pharmaceutical industries, e-commerce industry, online entertainment industry, insurance, online education and telework etc.

During the COVID-19 Pandemic, compared with traditional business models, the advantages of e-commerce model have become more and more popular. A delivery to home business model has become the first choice for many people, and the e-commerce industry has also ushered in a wave of orders. Because of the COVID-19, orders on e-commerce platforms soared . During the COVID-19, orders on major e-commerce platforms even exploded, and some businesses have even tried to take measures to reduce orders. By comparison, the traditional mortar and brick stores were hurt and some of them were very difficult to operate. E-commerce has become one of the few industries that can operate normally and make profits during the COVID-19, so Internet economy has experienced explosive development. However, the brutal growth of e-commerce has also a mix of good and bad goods mixed in the market.

Compared with the e-commerce industry, the development of the global pharmaceutical industry faced challenges. At the beginning of 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, Hubei Province, directly proved that China was not perfect in the emergency prevention and control system of major infectious diseases. Although shortage of medical resources in China is a part of the problem, the unreasonable distribution of medical resources is a more critical problem.  On one hand, China’s large hospitals siphoned most of the resources and patients that should belong to China's primary-level hospitals, which resulted in a great waste of medical resources caused by many mild patients in large hospitals, strain on medical resources and cross infections among health care professionals. On the other hand, because top level doctors and medical equipment are all in Chinese Class A hospitals, it is difficult for Class B hospitals and community hospitals to stop the spread of the COVID-19. Facing with the outbreak of the COVID-19, the entire medical system in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China was not well prepared and soon collapsed. The COVID-19 confirmed cases increased rapidly and remained at a high number. Wuhan needed more medical resources and more rescue supplies. At the critical moment, the Central Committee of Chinese Communist Party made an emergency deployment after taking full account of the current COVID-19 situation, human resource reserves and insufficient medical resources, and arranged health care providers from 19 provinces in China to support 16 cities, counties and towns except Wuhan, Hubei Province. Medical personnel were dispatched to Hubei Province, China to fight the COVID-19 by Chinese authorities on the Chinese New Year’s Eve and on the night of Lantern Festival. At one time more than 32,000 medical personnel from different parts of China worked  24 hours a day in Hubei Province, China. Through cooperation among tens of Chinese working units and construction forces gathered in Wuhan from different parts of China, the two hospitals in Wuhan, Hubei Province called “Fire God Mountain”and“Thunder God Mountain”were completed in quickly. The Chinese Army was responsible for delivering medical supplies and medical personnel. So, plenty of medical supplies and personnel were dispatched to the battle frontline of Wuhan against COVID-19, and finally won the first COVID-19 battle. It took about three months to achieve decisive results in the battle of Wuhan and the battle of Hubei in against COVID-19. So, China was the first country in the world in controlling the spread of COVID-19, resuming work and production, and resuming economic and social development.

The virus that causes COVID-19 constantly changes, or mutates, producing new variants of the virus such as the Alpha variant, Beta variant, Gamma variant, Delta variant, Omicron variant. These new variants make the prevention and control of the COVID-19 more and more difficult. China has always adhered to the principle of "people first, life first",  the strategy of “prevent inbound cases and domestic resurgences”, the policy of “dynamic zero-tolerance”, improve the normalized prevention and control mechanism of timely discovery, rapid disposal, precise control and effective treatment, and hold firm the bottom line that there will be no large-scale COVID rebound. With the weakening of the pathogenicity of Omicron virus, the popularization of vaccination, and the accumulation of prevention and control experience, we have issued 20 optimization measures and further optimization “new ten”measures after the issuance of nine versions of prevention and control plans and diagnosis and treatment plans. Although the epidemic continues, with the decline of the pathogenicity of omicron variant, the continuous improvement of our ability to deal with the epidemic, and with the continuous optimization and improvement of prevention and control measures, we have the method, the confidence and the ability to effectively coordinate the epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, and we have the basis, the conditions and confidence in winning the battle of normalized epidemic prevention and control.

According to the COVID-19 data recently released by the World Health Organization (WHO), there were more than 646 million confirmed cases and more than 6.63 million deaths in the world. By comparison, the incidence, severity and death rate of COVID-19 in China were at the lowest level in the world.

In the past three years of fighting COVID-19, in addition to the significant positive results achieved by the whole party and the Chinese people under the leadership of Central Committee of CPC (China Communist Party) in coordinating epidemic prevention and control and economic and social development, it can also be seen that China's medical industry has developed rapidly. Although the crisis of the COVID-19 showed the seriousness at the primary-level level hospitals, it also brought opportunities to reshape Chinese health care system.

During the epidemic, many pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies in the “The 2nd Daguan · Keweiwei World Brand Value Top 900” also comprehensively demonstrated their efforts in fighting COVID-19. 

After the COVID-19 outbreak in the world, Novartis, ranked 34th in the “2^nd Daguan · Keweiwei Brand Value Top 900”, quickly responded to the urgent appeal of European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industry and Associations (EFPIA), selected compounds that may be suitable for in vitro antiviral test, and quickly evaluated other existing drugs. Avexis (now renamed Novartis Gene Therapy), a part of  Novartis, announced cooperation with Massachusetts Eye and Ear Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital to produce new gene vaccines. Novartis also announced cooperation with Molecular Partners, headquartered in Switzerland, to promote the development, production and commercialization of the COVID-19 DARPin ®project to fight COVID-19, which involved two candidate drugs, MP0420 and MP0423. According to incomplete statistics of the 21st Century New Health Research Institute, as of November 2021, there are more than 25 COVID-19 vaccines approved by governments around the world, 7 of which are conditionally listed and approved for emergency use in China, including 5 inactivated vaccines from Sinopharm Group (Wuhan Institute and Beijing Institute), Kexing Biology, Kangtai Biology and Institute of Biology of Medical Academy, and 1 adenovirus vector vaccine from CanSinoBIO , 1 recombinant subunit protein vaccine from Zhifei Biology.

Merck&Co, ranked the 141st in the “2^nd Daguan · Keweiwei World  Brand Value Top 900”, worked with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and developed Molnupiravir, an oral polymerase (RdRp) inhibitor. Monupivar can combine with the RNA polymerase of COVID-19, introduce the wrong nucleotide into the newly synthesized RNA molecule, and make the virus RNA wrong and die. Based on the results of the MOVe-OUT mid-term analysis of the phase III clinical study, 775 subjects were randomly divided into 29 days. The hospitalization or death rates of the Monoupivir group and the oral placebo group were 7.3% (28/385) and 14.1% (53/377), respectively. Among them, 8 patients in the oral placebo group died, while nobody was reported dead in the Monoupivir group. According to the experimental data, Monupivir can reduce the risk of hospitalization and death of mild and moderate patients by 50%.

Paxlovid, developed and produced by Pfizer, ranked sixth in the “2^nd Daguan · Keweiwei World Brand Value Top 900”, was also effective to treat COVID-19. Paxlovid is used to treat COVID-19 infected patients who are not hospitalized and have a high risk of developing into severe disease. Paxlovid is a combination of 3CL protease inhibitor nimatralvir (PF-07321332) and ritonavir. Nimatralvir can inhibit the replication of SARS-CoV-2 protein, while ritonavir can slow down the decomposition of nimatralvir and maintain its effective concentration in vivo for a long time. Based on the final analysis results of Phase II/III EPIC-HR study and compared with placebo, Paxlovid reduced the risk of hospitalization or death for COVID-19 patients by 89%. In a secondary endpoint, PAXLOVID reduced the risk of hospitalization or death for any cause by 88% compared to placebo in patients treated within 5 days of symptoms onset. 

In addition to foreign pharmaceutical enterprises, Azvudine, jointly developed by Henan Genuine Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Zhengzhou University, Henan Normal University, and the High-tech Research Center of Henan Academy of Sciences, was approved to be on the market as an anti-HIV drug in July 2021, which is the world's first innovative drug to treat HIV/AIDS patients. In February 2020, Azvudine was found to be promising in tackling the COVID-10 disease and in April 2020, it was approved by the State Food and Drug Administration to carry out a phase III clinical trial against COVID-19. On July 25, 2022, the State Food and Drug Administration, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Drug Administration Law, carried out emergency review and approval in accordance with the special drug approval procedure, and conditionally approved the application for registration of additional indications for treatment of COVID-19 by Azvudine Tablets of Henan Genuine Biotechnology Co., Ltd.  On August 9, 2022, the General Office of the National Health Commission (NHC ) and the Office of the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine announced that the drug would be included in the Diagnosis and Treatment Plan for novel coronavirus Pneumonia (Ninth Edition).

In the prevention and control of COVID-19 epidemic in China, Lianhua Qingwen of Yiling Pharmaceutical, as the representative of the effective drug " three TCM drugs and three herbal formulas " selected by the scientific research team of the State Council in response to the joint prevention and control mechanism of COVID-19, has played an important role in the prevention and control of the epidemic in China. The study found that Lianhua Qingwen could significantly inhibit the replication of novel coronavirus in cells, and the expression of virus particles in cells was significantly reduced after the treatment of coronavirus. Inflammatory storm is an excessive immune response of the body to external stimuli such as viruses and bacteria. It has become an transitional point in the development of COVID-19 from mild to severe and critically ill. Lianhua Qingwen can significantly inhibit the overexpression of inflammatory factors TNF-a, IL-6, MCP-1 and IP-10 caused by novel coronavirus infected cells. Lianhua Qingwen showed stable antiviral effect in vitro, whether for alpha, beta, or delta mutants. Lianhua Qingwen also achieved good results in the treatment of Omicron mutant. During the epidemic, Lianhua Qingwen was widely used. "The Prospective, randomized, controlled, and multi-center clinical study on the treatment of COVID-19 with Lianhua Qingwen, a traditional Chinese medicine," showed that the proportion of severe cases in the treatment group was 50% lower than that in the conventional treatment group (2.1% in the treatment group and 4.2% in the conventional treatment group). This shows that Lianhua Qingwen can be used for the treatment of COVID-19 patients, which can curb the deterioration of COVID-19 patients and show a good trend in reducing the proportion of severe cases

However, with the introduction of the "10 new measures", the tension of the three-year of fighting COVID-19 relaxed, and the relaxation caused the number of people infected with COVID-19 to soar to a very high level. Because many were afraid of getting infected, medical resources were strained again. Due to the large number of positive patients, antipyretic drugs were snapped up by panic people , so drugs in pharmacy stocks and hospital pharmacy stocks were emptied and some people could not buy any antipyretic drugs. Although some patients with mild symptoms chose to quarantine at home, other patients went to hospitals. The continuous operation under high load of different hospital departments led to a far greater demand for medical resources. All antigen test products were sold out because of the cancellation of nucleic acid test. Although this situation had improved as times went by because most infected people “fully recovered”, we need to pay attention to the pharmaceutical industry in the post-epidemic era. 

First of all, the optimization of epidemic prevention and control measures does not mean that the virus is gone forever. In the next long period of time, we cannot ignore the pressure on the medical system and personal protection is still very important. Since the epidemic, people have become accustomed to wearing masks when traveling at home. At the same time, after experiencing the drug shortage situation, many people will also choose to "store drugs" and store some medical equipment. In the post-epidemic era, the demand for medicine will rebound. According to the brand value （China ）Network, JD Health showed that the online sales of cold medicine, fever medicine, cough medicine, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory drugs have increased significantly, and its sales has increased by 18 times on a month-on-month basis. The top 3 sold drugs are Lianhua Qingwen Capsules, Ganmaoling Granules and Pudillan Anti-inflammatory Tablets. Among them, Lianhua Qingwen is the most searched item, with a 2000 times increase. In addition, Brand Value (China )Network learned that in 2021, due to the frequent prevention, control and silent management measures during the epidemic, the number of inpatient visits in China fell by nearly 30 million, and the number of outpatient visits declined even more. “ After the "10 new measures", the number of outpatient and inpatient visits is bound to increase, so the demand for medical resources such as medicine will increase as well.

Secondly, with the development of Internet hospitals,  more and more C-end users, doctors, hospitals and enterprises will join these hospitals.  Because of their influence is expanding, medical quality and safety will be promoted to a higher position. In 2022, the regulatory policies of the two major sectors of Internet medicine and medicine were introduced, which planned a clearer path for the healthy development of the industry, and the construction of medical quality and safety became the industry theme. The two documents, Detailed Rules on Supervision of Internet-based Diagnosis and Treatment (Trial) and Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Pharmaceutical Network Sales , respectively from the two dimensions of medicine and medicine, formulated detailed rules for the management of the relevant service content of Internet hospitals. By interlinking the management from medicine to medicine, these two documents more clearly pointed out the healthy development direction of the industry. Brand Value (China) Network learned that the number of online medical users has exceeded 300 million, the number of Internet hospitals has exceeded 1700, and the number of Internet diagnosis and treatment services has also continued to grow, especially during the epidemic in some provinces and cities. Ordinary people’s consumption habits and thinking patterns have quietly changed and become more and more accustomed to telemedicine and digital payment means. With the Internet diagnosis and treatment included in medical insurance reimbursement, online follow up appointment and home delivery of drugs are becoming a new trend.

On the ranking of “Daguan · Keweiwei the 2^nd World Brand Value Top 900 ”released on July 2022, Merck&Co's brand value was 166.39 billion yuan, ranking 141st; Pfizer's brand value was 1221.507 billion yuan, ranking 6th; Novartis’brand value  was 631.042 billion yuan, ranking 34th.

www.bvrcn.com Brand Value (China) Network

Author:   晨曦

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