New Drug Pricing Reform Policy Establishes "Clinical Value" Focus, HEALTHYWAY INC (02587) RWS Business Enters Explosive Growth Phase

Stock News04-20

The General Office of the State Council has officially issued the "Several Opinions on Improving the Drug Price Formation Mechanism." This significant policy marks the formal establishment of a new pricing paradigm for China's pharmaceutical industry, guided by clinical value and supported by real-world evidence. The policy explicitly calls for strengthening the connection between drug prices and clinical value, real-world data, and multi-payer systems. This not only sets new guidelines for pharmaceutical companies' pricing strategies but also opens up a highly promising new growth avenue for the digital healthcare sector.

For HEALTHYWAY INC (02587), which has long been focused on primary healthcare scenarios, this policy serves as a top-level endorsement of its business model. It also signals a historic window for the company's value reassessment as an "AI-powered healthcare ecosystem connector."

The new policy establishes Real-World Studies (RWS) as a necessity, accelerating the process of data assetization. A key highlight of the policy is its explicit call to "establish a drug medical insurance value assessment system" and "improve the framework, rules, and procedures for drug real-world research." It encourages the use of RWS for innovative drugs as a scientific basis for pricing references and dynamic adjustments to medical insurance payment standards.

Following guidelines from medical regulatory bodies, RWS evidence has become a statutory basis for drug registration and indication expansion. Simultaneously, the medical insurance administration requires RWS results as a core reference for insurance coverage, renewal, and payment standard adjustments. In traditional drug pricing systems, real-world data was often marginalized. However, by directly linking RWS outcomes to initial price adjustments and insurance access, the new policy compels pharmaceutical companies to treat high-quality research reports as a standard requirement, even a necessity for market entry.

This development acts as a significant accelerator for HEALTHYWAY INC's core growth engine—its RWS business within the content services segment. Over the past three years, the company's RWS business has demonstrated remarkable growth: annual delivered reports increased from 450 in 2023 to 911 in 2025. The number of partnered pharmaceutical companies grew rapidly from 33 in 2023 to 62 in 2024, surpassing 92 in 2025—a threefold increase in three years. To date, the company has accumulated over 200 million valuable doctor-patient interaction data points. This data is being transformed via AI algorithms into research assets that meet national regulatory standards, becoming a crucial factor in reshaping drug pricing logic.

Concurrently, the policy's crackdown on misconduct in drug purchasing and sales, along with its push for compliant marketing, is forcing a shift in pharmaceutical companies' budgets from traditional channels towards digital platforms with strong compliance attributes. HEALTHYWAY INC has built a robust, connected private domain asset network of "doctor-medical assistant-patient" within the public healthcare system through its decentralized, on-the-ground approach. This model emphasizes service integration and precise reach over simple traffic distribution.

Against the backdrop of the new policy implementing drug price risk warnings and collaborative governance, the digital marketing services provided by HEALTHYWAY INC, supported by AI-assisted decision-making systems, help pharmaceutical companies achieve more efficient academic communication and value extraction within compliance boundaries. In 2025, the company's net profit crossed the break-even point, with profitability in the second half of the year significantly higher than in the first half. The core driver was the strong penetration of its high-margin digital services business during this policy transition period.

Notably, besides encouraging RWS for innovative drugs in commercial health insurance directories, the new policy also proposes to "fully leverage the role of commercial health insurance and introduce multi-party participation in innovative drug price negotiations." This not only grants HEALTHYWAY INC a technically neutral position in drug pricing discussions but also directly facilitates a commercial闭环 with insurance companies. The company has established deep collaborations with leading insurers and has embedded specialized disease insurance deeply into the entire patient journey.

Reflecting from the milestone of achieving profitability in 2025, HEALTHYWAY INC has completed a transformation from a traditional appointment-booking tool to an AI-driven healthcare ecosystem platform. In 2025, it achieved operating revenue of RMB 1.562 billion, a year-on-year increase of 30.1%, and achieved a historic net profit turnaround of RMB 54.34 million. As profit growth accelerates and policy tailwinds persist, the market should reassess this digital healthcare giant on the cusp of qualitative change. In the current environment where drug price reform is reshaping the value chain and AI technology is deeply penetrating healthcare scenarios, HEALTHYWAY INC is not just an information processor but also a service deliverer and transaction facilitator. The ecosystem value it releases by filling "structural holes" in the healthcare chain is driving a qualitative leap in its valuation logic, from a traditional service model towards a core technology engine.

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