On March 3, Zhao Yan, the "Queen of Hyaluronic Acid", announced the resignation of all corrupt personnel at the president's office meeting, officially opening the ceremony of Bloomage Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (688363. SH, hereinafter referred to as: Bloomage Biotech).

The person in the picture is Zhao Yan, chairman and general manager of Bloomage Biotech

The meeting was only 3 working days after Bloomage Biotech released its 2024 performance report, and at this time, Bloomage Biotech's stock price had fallen nearly 85% from its all-time high.

Image source: Straight Flush app

This leading company, which once created the myth of "medical beauty mao", is experiencing the most violent tissue fission in the biotechnology track. In the financial winter of 2024, when revenue fell by 11.60% year-on-year and net profit attributable to the parent company plummeted by 72.27%, Zhao Yan's anti-corruption sword and organizational reconstruction blueprint are not only a correction of past strategic mistakes, but also a profound experiment related to the survival logic of Chinese biotechnology companies.

Data source: Bloomage Biotech's 2024 annual performance express announcement

Profits stalled, business torn apart

"The chaos of the existing organization is far faster than the times allow," Zhao Yan said in an internal speech, pointing to the heart of the company's disease. This judgment is brutally confirmed in the operating data of the third quarter report of 2024, with the inventory scale of 1.315 billion yuan hitting a new high, a year-on-year increase of 9.83%, and accounts payable of 787 million yuan, a year-on-year surge of 37.6%. Behind these numbers is a serious misalignment between organizational capabilities and strategic transformation.

The

increase of tissue entropy of Bloomage Biotech presents a typical paradox of the transformation of technology-based enterprises: when synthetic biotechnology has achieved a scientific breakthrough in the extraction efficiency of hyaluronic acid, the market side has fallen into the path dependence of "pseudo-managers" relying on outsourcing and budget allocation. From 2019 to 2023, the sales expenses will increase from 521 million yuan to 2.842 billion yuan, but the net profit margin will plummet from 31.00% to 9.59%, exposing the systemic risk that the organizational structure cannot support the commercialization of the technology.

Image source: Straight Flush iFind, organized by Big Consumer Home

This contradiction became more and more obvious in the rapid growth of 51.92% in the medical terminal business in the first half of last year, and the avalanche decline of 29.74% in functional skin care products. When the company expanded three types of medical devices such as collagen sponge through the acquisition of Yierkang Biotechnology in the serious medical field, the consumer goods team was still repeating the marketing carnival of "rubbing hot spots and chasing the trend". This hierarchical decay of strategy execution is essentially an organizational culture confrontation between technical beliefs and business short-sightedness.

Repeated reforms, technology salvation

From the perspective of management data, in 2024, 190 million yuan of asset impairment losses will be provided, and more than 100 million yuan will be invested in management changes such as supply chain transformation.

The disruptive innovations of this storm are reflected in multiple dimensions, the first is to break the hotbed of corruption in budget outsourcing, and the reform to withdraw the approval power of outsourcing in 2024 has made the problem of lagging core capacity building visible; Secondly, it is necessary to reshape the decision-making chain, rename the "Personal Consumer Health Division" to the "Skin Science Innovation and Transformation Division", and force the genetic reorganization of scientific research and the market. More importantly, through the reform of the organizational structure and salary system of 70 million yuan, the incentive mechanism of entrepreneurial organizations will be reconstructed. But the risks under the scalpel are just as significant, and aggressive tissue cleansing could exacerbate short-term shocks in an already volatile market.

In terms of anti-corruption, Zhao Yan's attitude is unabashed. The thunderous tactic of resignation of corrupt personnel within a time limit is by no means a simple crisis public relations, which requires Zhao Yan to grasp the delicate art of balancing anti-corruption determination and organizational stability. Zhao Yan's ultimatum elevates the fight against corruption to the judicial level, enhancing deterrence while breaking the unspoken rules of internal digestion in the past. Although this move shows determination, if there is a vacuum in core positions due to clearance, it may reduce operational efficiency; The openness of judicial intervention may amplify the market's negative perception of internal loss of control.

In the shadow of the collapse of the consumer goods business, Bloomage Biotech's technical reserves are becoming a key bargaining chip through the cycle. Its synthetic biotechnology platform "Tianjin Pilot Achievement Transformation Center" has realized the layout of 64 pilot production lines and completed 18 transformation projects in 2024.

When R&D investment increases from 94 million yuan in 2019 to 446 million yuan in 2023, why does the market transformation efficiency not rise but decrease? The net profit has returned from 585 million yuan to 583 million yuan, which is even worse than that year. This reveals the mechanism rupture between the scientific research system and business transformation, and also shows that realizing profits is the core purpose of Zhao Yan's "return to the front line of business" reform.

Image source: Straight Flush iFind, organized by Big Consumer Home

From founder to savior?

"Anyone can reorganize this company without it, and the only thing that is inseparable is me, the founder", Zhao Yan's manifesto shows the typical dilemma of a strong entrepreneur.

On the one hand, the strategic determination formed by its 25 years of industry accumulation is the key to promoting long-term investment in synthetic biology; On the other hand, the decision-making that personally goes deep into the front line of consumer goods management may strengthen the organization's human governance.

But the strength of this rhetoric in strategy is also worth paying attention to, when the company needs a young, hard-core professional team, the founder authority can inhibit the organization's innovation vitality. How to transform personal will into institutional innovation ability is the real test of Bloomage Biotech's governance upgrading.

What's even more intriguing is that Zhao Yan introduced the "dark forest" law of "The Three-Body Problem" as a metaphor for crisis, believing that the work eulogizes the ultimate rationality in the crisis and the person who can lead the public out of the crisis, and prides herself on it. This approach of incorporating science fiction narratives into management philosophy highlights her unique cultural appeal as an entrepreneur.

Looking back in the spring of 2025, the crisis of Bloomage Biotech is precisely the proposition of China's biotechnology industry. In the end, what will determine the fate of Bloomage Biotech may not only be the clean-up of the anti-corruption storm, but also whether it can rebuild the transformation paradigm of "technology-market" in the reduction of organizational entropy. This survival revolution of scraping bones and curing poison may set up a new value coordinate for China's biotechnology track.