On July 26, the "Obesity Specialty - Standardized Weight Management Service System for Medical Institutions" project, led by the Endocrine and Metabolic Obesity Diagnosis and Treatment Alliance, officially launched in Nanjing. Jiangsu Province, as the sole national strategic pilot, will explore standardized and normalized pathways for obesity prevention and control in China, with the goal of expanding this model nationwide.
Addressing Key Pain Points: 'Clinics Established' Doesn't Mean 'Services Are Active'
As the national "Weight Management Year" campaign deepens, scientific weight loss has become a societal consensus. Recently, the State Council issued the "National Health '15th Five-Year Plan," which calls for implementing rational dietary actions and healthy weight management initiatives. It encourages secondary and above medical institutions to establish specialized clinics for weight management, mental health, sleep, and vaccination. Capable institutions are also urged to set up obesity prevention centers and health management centers. Professor Li Xiaoying, Chairman of the Endocrine and Metabolic Obesity Diagnosis and Treatment Alliance and from Zhongshan Hospital, Fudan University, noted, "Over 5,500 medical institutions across China have established weight management clinics, but we must ask ourselves—how are these clinics performing? Do they have unified standards? Are there standardized procedures? Is there long-term follow-up?" These unified standards and standardized services are crucial for the health management of obese or overweight patients. Currently, many people mistakenly view obesity as a cosmetic issue. In reality, obesity is a "common soil" for type 2 diabetes, hypertension, fatty liver, cardiovascular diseases, and sleep apnea. Professor Li emphasized, "Obesity is closely linked to multiple chronic metabolic diseases and tumors, such as diabetes, hypertension, and fatty liver, and is a common root cause of many chronic illnesses. Obesity is a chronic disease requiring long-term management, following the 'prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and management' full-chain approach." Activating clinic services by upgrading from fragmented care to a standardized medical service system is essential to truly help patients avoid the pitfall of "focusing only on the scale weight" and instead achieve "metabolic health-driven" outcomes.
Undervalued Services: Weight Loss Isn't Just 'Dietary Adjustments' or 'Prescribing Medications'
Weight management is far more than simply "prescribing weight-loss drugs" or "providing diet recommendations." It encompasses a full chain of professional services, from precise assessment and multidisciplinary consultation to individualized intervention and long-term follow-up. This involves multiple specialized fields, including endocrine metabolic regulation, medical nutrition therapy, exercise prescription, and psychological behavioral intervention. Professor Li Xiaoying stressed, "Obesity can be managed through long-term, effective medical means. To make weight management truly effective, it must rely on the systematic intervention of a professional medical team." However, weight management services have long been fragmented, lacking long-term follow-up, which has made it difficult to quantify and recognize the professional efforts of healthcare providers, leaving their service value unacknowledged. Professor Bi Yan, President of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, The Affiliated Hospital of Nanjing University Medical School, believes, "If the value of services is not seen, the service system cannot sustain itself." Professor Li pointed out that there is an urgent need to "promote the standardized construction of healthy weight management clinics, multidisciplinary collaboration, and integrated online-offline management to help elevate obesity diagnosis and treatment standards nationwide." Through the establishment of a standardized system, the professional content of weight management services can be streamlined and made quantifiable. This will, on one hand, provide patients with more comprehensive and efficient diagnostic and treatment services. On the other hand, it will amplify the collaborative value of professionals such as endocrinologists, dietitians, exercise rehabilitation specialists, and psychologists, attracting more talented individuals to the field of obesity prevention and control.
Jiangsu's Pioneering Path: From Prevention and Screening to Diagnosis and Follow-up
At the launch event, Professor Bi Yan, President of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, released the "Jiangsu Province Weight Management Status Survey and Analysis Report (2026)." The survey covered 143 hospitals across all 13 prefecture-level cities in Jiangsu. The results showed that only 11.7% of hospitals in the province have independent physical weight centers, while 63.4% still operate as disease-specific affiliated clinics. Outpatient follow-up coverage was only 25.5%, and full-process digital system coverage was just 5%. Psychological and behavioral assessment implementation was only 8.7%, and the rate of mental health professionals in multidisciplinary team (MDT) settings was only 41.4%. This is not just a phenomenon in Jiangsu but a common issue in weight management nationwide. Jiangsu will leverage its role as a pioneer to find effective solutions tailored to provincial and national conditions. It is understood that the "Jiangsu Model" to be developed will follow the requirements of medical service model innovation, including "promoting integrated traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment models, multi-disciplinary integrated diagnosis and treatment models, and full-chain service models," to create standardized, regulated, and systematic solutions. The standardized weight management service system will focus on four key areas: In strengthening clinical specialty construction, it will take obesity as an entry point to promote the development of distinctive sub-specialties within endocrinology and metabolism, creating differentiated specialty service capabilities. In advancing medical technology innovation, the system will establish a unified provincial standardized patient registry, collect long-term real-world clinical data from overweight and obese populations in China, and conduct comparative studies of innovative service models versus traditional single interventions to generate new technologies, plans, and strategies. In promoting medical service model innovation, the project will actively explore multi-disciplinary integrated diagnosis and treatment models, upgrading MDT from simple appointment bundling to a standardized service package model. It will also build a full-chain service model covering in-hospital diagnosis and out-of-hospital management, integrating educational tools, AI agents, and other elements. In strengthening information technology support, the project will simultaneously build a region-wide digital quality control closed-loop system, using data to drive continuous improvement in medical quality. These pilot programs will first be implemented in Nanjing, Yangzhou, Yancheng, and Suzhou, establishing four standardized demonstration centers, and will be rolled out in three phases from 2026 to 2029. Specifically, from 2026 to 2027, pilot exploration and standard formulation will be completed; from 2027 to 2028, mature systems will be exported to other provinces; and from 2028 to 2029, nationwide grid coverage will be achieved. "Promoting scientific weight management and healthy lifestyles can curb the growth of obesity at its source and reduce the onset and progression of related diseases," said Professor Li Xiaoying. This requires the joint participation of relevant government agencies, authoritative experts, and biomanufacturing enterprises. Innovent Biologics (INNOVENT BIO), as a core supporting unit, will leverage its deep innovative drugs and industrial resources to deeply participate in and contribute to the improvement and implementation of the weight management service system. In the field of weight management, Innovent Biologics' internally developed drug, Mazdutide, has garnered widespread market attention since its approval in June 2025, thanks to its differentiated clinical value and continuously accumulating high-quality evidence. Research findings on Mazdutide have been published multiple times in internationally renowned journals, making it the only GLP-1 drug globally to be featured in all three top-tier journals: Nature, The New England Journal of Medicine, and The Journal of the American Medical Association. Using Mazdutide as a foundation, Innovent Biologics has established a solid base in the endocrine and metabolic field. Zhang Qian, Executive Director and Chief Commercial Officer of Innovent Biologics, stated, "In the next five years, Innovent Biologics plans to launch five to six additional innovative metabolic drugs. We will work hand-in-hand with industry partners and clinical experts to provide Chinese patients with more innovative products and solutions, continuously improving the weight management service system."
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