The 2026 Asia Pacific Pharmacy Conference will focus on the transformation of pharmacies: a restructuring from selling medicine to health service stations.

On the afternoon of August 12, 2026, at the main venue of the Boao Forum for Asia HK&S HOTELSBFA, a deep discussion on the future form of retail pharmacies was underway. As an important component of the Xipu Conference, the Health Industry Ecological Conference focused on the theme of New Paradigm of Business Models. Representatives from companies such as Tianjin Pharmaceutical Da Ren Tang Group Corporation, Yunnan Baiyao Group (000538.SZ), Dong-E-E-Jiao (000423.SZ), China Resources Jiangzhong Pharmaceutical, Pfizer Inc. (PFE.US) in China, and Zhongkang Technology (02361) shared the stage with leaders from major chain pharmacies like Yixintang Pharmaceutical (002727.SZ) and Shu Yu Civilian Pharmacy Corp., Ltd. (301017.SZ) to jointly explore the transformation paths of retail pharmacies in the AI era. The conference chair and General Manager of China Resources Jiangzhong Pharmaceutical, Xu Yongqian, highlighted the urgency of transformation at the outset: the consumer-centered scattered operation model of pharmacies is being restructured under the penetrating power of AI, and the new business model of health stations has already taken root. It was observed that behind this transformation is a clear positioning at the national level. In January of this year, the Ministry of Commerce and eight other ministries issued the Opinions on Promoting High-Quality Development of Drug Retail, which for the first time at the national level promotes the upgrade of pharmacies from drug sales terminals to health stations, emphasizing the three core functions of professional services, health promotion, and emergency support. Almost concurrently, the 14th Five-Year Plan for national health also clearly proposed shifting from a disease-centered approach to a health-centered one, aiming to build a health management service system throughout the entire life cycle. Liang Guanzhang, Vice President of Zhongkang Technology, pointed out that there is a clear timeline for policy evolution: from determining direction in 2015 to proposing transformation for the first time in the 14th Five-Year Plan, and then to this years document clarifying positioning; the re-positioning of pharmacy functions has become clear, stating that health stations are no longer just a slogan, but a process that must assume comprehensive services such as medication consultation, weight loss, smoking cessation, and medical care management. However, while policies sketch a blueprint, real data reveals a chilling reality. A set of numbers shared by Liang Guanzhang made the audience ponder: the number of pharmacies nationwide has dropped from a peak of 702,000 to 680,000, with a net decrease of 22,000 expected by 2025, and a closure rate reaching 7.5%. The industry has fully transitioned from a decade of quantitative expansion to vying for existing market share. The operational front is similarly grim, with retail sales only growing by 1.5% from January to May this year, and the overall gross margin of pharmacies has slipped to around 30% in 2023. Even more striking is the customer flow data overall foot traffic has been declining, while the percentage of consumers highly concerned about health has climbed from 83.9% in 2023 to 93%. Diverse demands related to gastrointestinal health, sleep, cardiovascular health, immunity, and oral health have long exceeded the traditional scope of seeing a doctor and taking medicine. Demand is upgrading, while supply lags behind, creating a structural contradiction that hangs over the industry like the sword of Damocles. At this crossroads, what should a health station ideally be? Li Jun Guo, Vice President of Zhongkang Technology, provided a crucial definition: a health station is the last mile of health management. He explained that globally, health management after outpatient care or hospital discharge is not handled by doctors due to high societal costs; instead, health stations focus on managing adherence to healthy lifestyles post-medical treatment, including medication adherence, exercise prescriptions, and nutritional prescriptions, the latter four of which are unfortunately often overlooked by clinicians. This implies that pharmacies must transition from being places to sell medicine to health-based scenes, moving from single transactions to long-term companionship, and must possess the core capabilities of professional service strength, member operations, and digital penetration. In Li Jun Guo's view, health stations initially provide disease management, advancing later to full life-cycle health management, stating, first manage the disease, then manage overall health. Meanwhile, during the conference, several pharmaceutical companies shared their specialized renewal paths. For example, Wang Lei, Chairman of Tianjin Pharmaceutical Da Ren Tang Group Corporation, focused on the field of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular health, breaking out of traditional hospital-centered diagnostic views by constructing nearly a hundred lifestyle scenarios through five dimensions: time, space, etc., summarizing a service logic of constant preparation, constant use, and constant affliction. Clinical observations from 2,817 cases conducted in partnership with 12 tertiary hospitals show that the clinical application rate of fast-acting heart-saving pills reached 92.2%, highlighting their outstanding safety in the case of acute myocardial infarction with hypotension. Wang Lei revealed that the company plans to distribute 100,000 family first aid kits to protect heart health for 500 million families, and will collaborate with Alipay to create the first AI intelligent guardian for heart health. Zheng Xiangwei, General Manager of the Yunnan Baiyao Group's Pharmaceutical Business Division, proposed providing comprehensive solutions from four dimensions: medicine, treatment, nurturing, and prevention, extending traditional advantages from trauma care to cardiovascular improvement, oral health, scalp care, and food-medicine homology fields, achieving a transition from selling products to selling solutions. Under pressure from existing market competition, expanding growth avenues has become a common choice for enterprises. Dong-E-E-Jiao announced a strategic leap during this conference, extending its focus from female tonics to male tonics, redefining the kidney-tonifying category as a new avenue for male health and vitality. The company has acquired resources for raw materials such as cistanche and deer antlers, and a range of products including brain-nourishing kidney tonics and deer velvet powder will be launched from August to September, with plans to concentrate on co-building an incremental market with 10 to 50 core chains. Meanwhile, China Resources Jiangzhong Pharmaceutical continues to deepen its exploration of the home essentials avenue, releasing new packaging for lactic acid bacteria tablets, bifidobacterium triple live bacteria (from hospital to retail), brain health supplements, multivitamins, and liver care tablets, building a health product matrix that covers all family scenarios. Of course, while creating uniqueness, technological innovation seems to be providing underlying support for this transformation. Li Guanglai, head of retail business for Pfizer Inc. in China, shared innovative practices for outpatient weight management: by collaborating with fitness brands to drive traffic, setting up 3D body scanning and professional pharmacist services in pharmacies, and utilizing AI calorie recognition and one-on-one patient management methods, it upgrades weight loss from merely selling products to defining a lifestyle. Li Guanglai emphasized that Pfizer Inc.'s slogan is let patients win first, let partners win first, and that in the future, its product line will continue to expand, extending in-hospital specialization to out-of-hospital living scenarios. Between ideals and reality, there are several issues waiting to be solved. During the roundtable forum, Yixintang Pharmaceutical Chairman Ruan Hongxian candidly stated, the biggest obstacle is ourselves. He warned that if corporate concepts do not evolve in sync with policies, markets, and consumers, aren't we just waiting to die? Shu Yu Civilian Pharmacy Corp., Ltd. Chairman Li Wenjie specifically pointed out five major challenges: first, the high qualification requirements for staff, while the industry has a weak talent foundation with only 757,000 registered pharmacists across the country, a shortfall of 440,000; second, the assessment system for chain pharmacies traditionally oriented toward sales is difficult to shift toward a service orientation in the short term; third, the hardware renovation of stores requires substantial financial investment; fourth, the lack of data integration between hospitals and pharmacies makes life-cycle management difficult; and fifth, some health monitoring projects, such as blood pressure, blood sugar, and bone density tests, remain in a gray area at the policy level, limiting service development due to compliance risks. Li Guanglai supplemented from an industrial perspective that building health stations is an ecological project that requires industry and retail to break the barriers of product trading and jointly invest resources to cultivate the market. In fact, by the end of the discussions, participants unanimously recognized that health stations are the only clear direction for industry transformation, but that it is certainly not a straightforward process. As host Xu Yongqian noted, the starting point of the health industry has always been the family. When drugs transition from being treatment tools to becoming part of a lifestyle, whoever can help consumers achieve a better self will have the opportunity to redefine the rules of the game. Driven by the dual forces of innovations in AI technology and policy benefits, the reconstruction of retail pharmacy formats has pressed the accelerator button, while successfully navigating the drugs + services business model will be key to determining the success or failure of this transformation.