Invisible braces for 8 million people, creating a billion-dollar orthodontic empire

13 Can universal buy teeth confident?


is not necessarily. At least, Zihan (pseudonym), who spent 130,000 yuan to find a well-known orthodontist, felt that he was "pitted."


At the end of 2017, in order to be more confident, Zihan decided to adjust his teeth with "invisible beauty" which has a small effect on appearance. So, she came to Beijing Saide Sunshine Dental, and asked Zhou Yanheng, who is quite famous in the industry, to give her orthodontics.


"invisalign" (invisalign) is the world's first invisible orthodontic brand developed and designed by Align Technology. This product uses transparent polymer materials to make braces and , and apply external force to arrange the teeth neatly.


Figure 丨 Invisible Beauty


Zhou Yanheng’s reputation in the orthodontic industry is mainly derived from a series of dazzling titles: the former director of the Orthodontics Department of Peking University Stomatological Hospital, the founder of Said Sunshine Dental, "China's first invisible orthodontics People" and China Yinshimei "00001" certified physicians, etc.


Zihan told the magnifying lamp team (ID: guokr233) that perhaps thanks to Zhou Yanheng's reputation, the asking price of Said Sunshine was twice that of a lesser-known dental clinic in Beijing. However, in the opinion of Zihan's parents, this is not a problem, "just find the most reliable one".


Unfortunately, under the prestigious reputation, Zihan's Sunshine treatment process was not so satisfactory. She felt that the poor experience of follow-up consultation was totally sorry for the asking price of more than 100,000 yuan: after Zhou Yanheng finalized the orthodontic plan, every time The communication time with Zihan during the second visit was only a few dozen seconds, and the rest of the work was left to the nurse. Zihan felt that "this is very perfunctory and does not respect the patient."


According to Zihan’s observations, in the outpatient department where she sees a doctor, there is a long queue for each follow-up visit. The number of patients Zhou Yanheng received in one day was "not thousands, but hundreds." According to his starting price of 100,000 yuan, he alone can bring tens of millions of water in Beijing. There are 21 outpatient clinics across the country.


In fact, Zhou Yanheng is just a typical representative of many profit from orthodontics. Behind it is my country's huge orthodontic market, as well as the "invisible orthodontics" company as a representative of invisible orthodontics. According to the "Pharmaceutical Industry 2020 Interim Strategy Report" issued by Ping An Securities Research Institute, my country's malocclusion rate is 70%, and the orthodontic market exceeds 160 billion yuan. [1]


Yang Jingyi丨Author

Li Tuo, Sun Ruliang, Liu Dongyu丨Editor

zoom lamp team丨Planning doctor


, or selling?

is different from general medical equipment such as ventilators and nebulizers. Orthodontics is a time-consuming and complex treatment process, which requires extremely high technical requirements for doctors.


invisible orthodontics is no exception. The manufacturer has even set up an "access mechanism" for this purpose: Take Insimeme as an example, orthodontists need to actively sign up, go through the company's review, selection, and training to become Insimeme's "certified doctors", and then go through various The training organized by the company and the corresponding certification are qualified to recommend the company's products to patients. The biggest advantage of


invisible orthodontic services is "less things, more money". Compared with orthodontic brackets, the manufacturer of invisible orthodontics has taken over most of the technical problems of , does not require doctors to personally be . Doctor


uses the manufacturer’s scanner to model the patient’s mouth, and the manufacturer formulates the corresponding treatment plan according to the patient’s condition and produces invisible braces. With the current technology of Invisme, it can even predict the entire orthodontic process of the patient. Dozens of braces that the patient needs for several years can be made at one time.


In this way, the doctor's presence is not high. Dr. Li, who works at a dental clinic in Jinan, told the magnifying lamp team that in the process of invisible orthodontics, the doctor’s greatest value is “monitoring”: that is, being responsible for communicating with patients, controlling the progress of orthodontics during follow-up visits, or calling the patient a few Bone nails correct the bite.


"Orthodontics is a graduate-level subject that requiresTo receive professional training, otherwise it is risky. "However, Dr. Chen from a Beijing dental hospital observed that due to the lack of relevant standards, dental general practitioners and pediatric dentists have begun to perform orthodontics in recent years .


Regarding this, she believes that it is invisible orthodontics. The company’s promotion and marketing finally contributed to the current lowering of the threshold for orthodontics. After all, in addition to saving trouble, the price of invisible orthodontics is also much higher than that of orthodontic brackets: the current price of orthodontic brackets has been suppressed. Less than 20,000 yuan, but invisible orthodontics is still expensive.


invisible orthodontics vs traditional brackets | Figure worm


several invisible orthodontic doctors told the magnifying lamp team that the package price of invisible orthodontics is basically not less than 40,000 yuan Among them, the cost of materials paid to Insimetics is about 10,000 to 20,000 yuan, which means that distributors, hospitals, and doctors have nearly half of the profit margin. After the threshold of


is lowered, a large number of doctors have poured into the invisible orthodontics industry. Competition for resources follows. Because the industry attaches great importance to the experience and cases of doctors, large institutions and well-known doctors have the vast majority of patient resources. This makes it difficult for new doctors to obtain patient approval even if they are certified, and no case is submitted. , And eventually become a "zombie doctor", but the head doctor has limited time, too much porridge, and the patient is ultimately the loser.


What if there are not enough senior dentists? One idea is to improve the efficiency of doctors' service-this is the "Internet + dentist" Opportunity, In fact, the Internet has indeed brought some variables to the industry .


Mint Dentist founder Nan Zhe founded an online orthodontic platform-Wisime Technology in November 2019, claiming to lower the price of orthodontics To 28,800 yuan. [2] In July 2020, Weishimei announced that it had obtained 10 million yuan in angel round financing, led by Shunwei Capital. [3]


Weishimei transferred the sampling process to the Internet, using the Internet The idea is to reduce customer acquisition and diagnosis and treatment costs, and users can communicate with doctors online and follow-up consultations.


but this also impacts the price system and service standards of Hidden Beauty. Pinduoduo and Tesla’s "subsidy incidents" are making a lot of noise, and Weishimei’s business model is exactly the same-I cut the price, what do you do?


Another problem is that price reduction pursues higher sales, and Invisime has been facing a bottleneck in production capacity. Director Mo of Mingyue Oral Department feels that Shimei is in Sichuan After the establishment of the factory in Ziyang, the production speed of braces has accelerated, ", but it has been significantly slower during this period. It is said that is caused by insufficient production lines. "


In addition, doctors on the Weishimei platform use their free time to practice more than one practice. How doctors should balance the offline unit and online "extravagance" will not only test the professional quality of doctors, but also the management capabilities of the platform.


Invisible Beauty, no matter how the doctor's "online" doctor

is tossing, the real muffled voice is still invisible. According to public information,


is behind the invisible orthodontic medical equipment company Avery. Technology (Align Technology). The company was established in 1997, and its invisible orthodontic device "Invisible Beauty" was approved by the FDA in the following year, and began its commercialization.


was determined by the World Health Organization (WHO) due to malocclusion One of the three major oral diseases[4], the high morbidity rate has made Insimilar unexpectedly sought after. Avery Technology was listed on the Nasdaq in 2001.


was listed on January 1, 2007, six years later. Technology began to shift its target to the Asian market, including China, and established a distributor in the Asia-Pacific region of Insima. [5]


In fact, the Chinese invisible orthodontic market was not a blank at that time. Age Angel and Zhengya These companies were established in 2003 and 2004 respectively, and they started the invisible orthodontic business in China before the arrival of Invisme. More than ten years have passed, the growth rate of orthodontic brackets has almost stagnated., Invisible orthodontics began to grow rapidly. According to the data from the "China Orthodontics Consumption Blue Book in 2018," the number of orthodontic patients with brackets reached 1.572 million in 2015, accounting for 96%, but the year-on-year increase was only 11.1%, while invisible orthodontic patients only accounted for 4%, The growth rate is as high as 65.7%, almost 6 times that of the former. [6]


Since 2017, the growth rate of net income and the number of cases from the Americas has been far lower than the growth brought by other regions of the world. In the 2019 annual report, Avery Technology mentioned: "Compared with the same period last year, our international sales volume (except Americas) increased by 34.0%. This is mainly due to EMEA (Europe, Middle East, Africa) and APAC. (Asia-Pacific) regional adoption rate increases and customer base expansion.” And due to Insimilar's continued investment in these regions, Insimilar expects revenue growth from outside the Americas to continue to grow. [7]


At the beginning of 2020, Avery Technology announced that it has served more than 8 million patients. [8] Today, Avery Technology's total market value is close to 25 billion U.S. dollars, and its annual sales gross margin exceeds 70%. [9]


young doctors can only be online celebrities?

wants to mix in this industry, the certification of the invisible orthodontic company is just an "entry ticket", and how much development it can ultimately have depends on its own ability.


For example, after Zhou Yanheng left the Peking University Dental Hospital to start a business, patients still continued to flow, and the asking price for orthodontics could exceed 100,000 yuan. Even Said Sunshine, where he was located, received Qiming Venture Capital and Sunshine Fusion Capital several hundred million yuan at the beginning of the year. A round of financing. [10]


, but there is only one "00001" number. The time cost of becoming a respected and respected doctor is too high. What about the young doctor? The answer to


is to be an internet celebrity. Behind the jaw-dropping choices of most young doctors, Insime has made it convenient for them: has a rigorous and complete doctor hierarchy system, which is the cornerstone of its operation of doctors, .


Every certified orthodontist is the sales tentacles of the manufacturer, and they form a luxurious "sales team". The company will use the invisible orthodontic cases submitted by the doctors as the "performance", and divide the doctors into "Gold Medal Doctors", "Platinum Doctors" and "Diamond Doctors". Each year, the company will send them to the top doctors according to the number of submitted cases. "Outstanding Achievement" trophy.


is in the hands of doctors, these trophies are self-packaging tools. In 2020, on the 10th anniversary of Insime’s entry into China, limited edition trophies were distributed to a few Insime’s doctors. After searching, the Zoom Light team found that this trophy, which only the top 50 star doctors in the country can own, can find 15 trophies on Weibo alone.



Among the 15 doctors holding trophies, 3 have Weibo fans over one million, 7 have hundreds of thousands of fans, and only one has less than 10,000 followers. Although the number of fans is uneven, the common point is that they are all motivated and approachable on Weibo. Perhaps this image will gain the trust of potential patients.


Ironically, the number of fans of these doctors seems far less credible than their Weibo page. The Weibo data of the doctors with millions of fans does not match the number of fans. Judging from the excessively different number of “recommended likes” and the occasional comment area where “a lot of watering” appears, the fans of these bloggers are most likely to be fans. from.


Interestingly, although invisible aligners are not only a kind of invisible aligner, but the only one that can make doctors obsessed with packaging themselves into an online celebrity is the invisible aligner . It is understood that Angel of Time is also awarding trophies to certified doctors, but there are far fewer people willing to post on Weibo than Yin Shimei.


This may be related to the different market shares and "doctor pool" of the two brands, but more importantly, Yinshimei and Time Angel have not been in the same dimension from the beginning, because Yinshimei has taken a direct line A marketing strategy that affects patients and forces hospitals and doctors to choose.

z3Is z

orthodontics really necessary? The success of

Yinshimei is inseparable from its own unique marketing channels.


Generally speaking, medical equipment companies are "making a fortune": as long as they have a good relationship with the director of the equipment department and send the products to the hospital, it is the doctor's business to sell the products.


Yin Shimei is not the case. It believes more in its own influence and believes that it is more efficient to influence consumer choices through a large number of marketing than to rely on doctors to "bring goods".


has always spared no effort in marketing, as admitted in the 2019 annual report: “Our marketing costs are huge, including activities carried out on television, print media, social media in various countries and regions, and recent collaborations with The cooperation between professional sports teams and other strategic partners."[7]


A large number of marketing has brought a well-known brand effect. "When I think of invisibility correction, it seems that everyone is saying that they are all using Invisme." The boss of a company who just put on Invisme recently told the magnifying lamp team. The successful brand operation of


allowed Yinshimei to take advantage of the higher premium of the top brand. Many consumers expressed the "high price and peace of mind" consumer proposition to the magnifying lamp team.


But one of the side effects of marketing is over-treatment. Yinshimei has positioned itself as a more "beautiful", "confident" and "enjoy life" orthodontic choice[11]. Throughout the years of the propaganda films of Yinshimei, even if the stories told are ever-changing, there is always a bite in the picture. Neatly "big white teeth".


Figure 丨 Invisible Beauty’s official promotional film


is not inferior to Xinxian’s “women are beautiful only when they are complete”, and the male clinic’s “ten men and nine are empty”. The values ​​are relatively correct, and "moisturize things silently". The content of Invisible Beauty not only magnifies the aesthetic function of orthodontics, but also hits the patients' inferiority complex. More and more people lose their minds and undergo orthodontics for a better appearance.


The necessity of orthodontics is inherently vague. If someone is not satisfied with their teeth, the first reaction is which hospital to go to or which product to use. They rarely consider their real needs, because as long as the patient persists, the doctor will not Reasons for refusal to door-to-door sales.


Now the vast majority of people have directly passed the stage of considering "whether it is necessary" and directly chose hospitals and doctors. Who can give patients a pertinent suggestion?


References:

[1] "Pharmaceutical Industry 2020 Interim Strategy Report", Ping An Securities
http://data.eastmoney.com/report/zw_strategy.jshtml?encodeUrl=+enOkfp2OrshSvdFgVgf+782ALebfLw64=1DDNoq+782ALebfLw64=1DDNoq .xfz.cn/post/9742.html

[3] Provide invisible orthodontics services with specialist doctors from tertiary hospitals, "Weishimei" received 10 million yuan in angel round financing
https://36kr.com/p/777073935997826
[ 4] Why the incidence of malocclusion is very high now https://www.yadashi.com/Info/20111/10517.Shtml

[5] Invisme official website
https://www.aligntech.com/about
[6] Oral The future growth of leading companies is worth looking forward to. Eastern Fortune Securities

http://data.eastmoney.com/report/zw_stock.jshtml?encodeUrl=XjIxP13DGO0S2U4v91yKryFsh1BhwaDwYFhYW9Wkkcc=
[7] AiAligntech Financial Report
https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1097149/000109714920000008/algn-20191231x10k.htm
[8] Yinshimei official website
https://www.aligntech.com/ newsroom

[9] Avery Technology Financial Analysis

http://emweb.eastmoney.com/pc_usf10/FinancialAnalysis/index?color=web&code=ALGN

[10] Aiming at the 100 billion orthodontic blue ocean, "Said Sunshine" won hundreds of millions of A Round financing
https://36kr.com/p/1724955901953
[11] Invisalign official website
https://www.invisalign.com.cn/cn/about-invisalign