Asia Business Podcast Bridging Healthcare Innovations Between Europe and China with Chenchao Liu
Connect with Chenchao Liu on LinkedIn
Full show Transcript below Summary and Timestamps
Overview
In this episode of the Asia Business Podcast, host Art Dicker interviews Chenchao Liu, the founder of SILREAL, a management consulting firm focusing on healthcare and Sino-European business exchanges. Chenchao shares his journey from China to Germany, his transition from science to business, and the mission of bridging the healthcare sectors between China and the West. They discuss the unique collaboration opportunities in pharmaceuticals and healthcare services between China and Europe, navigating political barriers, and the impact of regulations like IP protection and data sharing laws. The conversation delves into the challenges and trends reshaping the industry in China, including the aging population, health consciousness post-COVID, and the dynamics of foreign companies adapting to China's volume-based pricing system.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction to the Episode and Guest
00:41 Chenchao Liu's Journey from China to Germany and Founding SILREAL
01:49 Bridging Sino-European Business in Healthcare
02:54 Exploring Recent Projects and the Impact of SILREAL's Work
05:03 Opportunities for China-Europe Collaboration in Healthcare
08:20 Navigating Political Barriers in Sino-European Relations
16:23 The Impact of Regulations on Cross-Border Healthcare Collaboration
21:15 Macro Trends Shaping the Healthcare Industry in China
31:16 Concluding Remarks and How to Connect with Chenchao Liu
Transcript
Art: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to another episode of the Asia Business Podcast. I'm your host, Art Dicker. Today we have the absolute pleasure of being joined by Chenchao Liu. Chenchao is the founder of SILREAL, a management consulting firm specializing in the healthcare sector [00:00:15] and fostering Sino European business exchanges.
Art: Welcome Chenchao.
Chenchao: Thank you, Art. Thank you for having me.
Art: Yeah, we've been talking. We've been talking a few times over the last couple of years or so, and [00:00:30] it just seemed natural that we do a podcast. We've had long conversations, the two of us just talking about some of these things we're going to get into.
Art: So it's, like I said, it's natural. We just record an episode about it. And, you were born in China, but you've lived in Germany for more than 20 [00:00:45] years now. And I was wondering if you could share a bit about your own kind Your own story behind the founding of SILREAL and then also help the audience understand a bit more kind of work you do to bridge the European Chinese markets in life [00:01:00] sciences.
Chenchao: Yeah, thank you, Art. Thank you for really inviting me and I respect and follow your work for a while and appreciate that I could share some of my story here. Yeah, as you mentioned, yeah, I was born in [00:01:15] China in Qingdao, historical city connected to Germany. And I came to Germany when I was 13. So I went to elementary school, and I studied chemistry in Munich.
Chenchao: And had very devoted concentration interested into [00:01:30] science and was very active. I high school already for Olympics and later for Mustang Institute ATH. But I realized later that due to the internship I did with consulting firms that I'm really belong to the business world.
Chenchao: I [00:01:45] want to work with people. I want to be in real impact making. And yeah, so I after graduation, I went to consulting firm, I did a lot of projects for hospitals and also for private equities [00:02:00] in 2017 when I realized that I wanted to Do more things with China. I said to myself look into the mirror.
Chenchao: You cannot just look like this way. It's better that you could do something content wise with the country [00:02:15] where you're from. And yeah, I started to advise some Chinese firms who come to Europe and vice versa. And yeah, and what is really entrepreneurial journey. Nobody has taught me how to build business, so really try and [00:02:30] arrow and yeah, I think it's combination of hard work, persistent and also support of others.
Chenchao: We have thright and have again, some traction, have project from federal menstrual health and the state governments help some big [00:02:45] pharma like AstraZeneca. And yeah, I really want to be the bridge in life science healthcare between China and the West.
Art: And can you talk a bit about some of the sort of the projects that you've worked on recently and[00:03:00] or so, some, so give the audience a really some context for some actual to the extent you're allowed to talk about it, but I know also we'll get into it.
Art: You've got quite a. Number of wonderful endorsements on your websites from the projects you've worked on, but just [00:03:15] to give the audience a bit of wrap their heads around the actual kind of consulting work and so forth that you do.
Chenchao: Yeah, thank you, Arthur. So basically, we have three main sectors of industries.
Chenchao: We serve for health [00:03:30] care, life science and public sector. We have done digitalization project for health care providers in Germany. I helped them to modernize their 6000 employee. System of hrs and consolidate over [00:03:45] 20 entities. And also to transform how they track employee working time and management of the post recruitment retention.
Chenchao: So other project we have done is really to bring [00:04:00] public and private sector together to tackle Corona diseases. To learn from each other between German China when it's come to for example, COPD. I think the strengths we can bring here is really to understand the [00:04:15] policy, understand the legal justice nature.
Chenchao: But also to bridge, what does it make the difference between how Germany and China handle different disease areas. And lastly, as I mentioned for the government public sector we do [00:04:30] oftentimes delegation trips for ministry level for experts from insurance for hospital representative to really to understand how big countries like China, Israel and the U.
Chenchao: S. Playing around in the [00:04:45] digitalization. And that's why I think it's very crucial especially in this age to have a active dialogue because I do think, as you mentioned, the before the trip for by the chancellor, there's this avenue of collaboration [00:05:00] is still very strong within the healthcare.
Art: Yeah, let's jump into that, jump ahead into that question. The, in an ideal scenario, devoid of political barriers, and we'll get into those, maybe some of those political barriers in a 2nd, but, what are some of the [00:05:15] unique opportunities for collaboration between China and Europe in the, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology.
Art: Health care services, because it seems like there's you've already hit on it a bit. There's naturally a lot of synergies. There's just by listening to some of the projects [00:05:30] you've supported so far. So without politics in the mix, what would be the, some of the more of those kind of natural synergies between between China and Europe in these sectors?
Chenchao: Yeah, thank you. I think due to a large population, 1. [00:05:45] 5 billion in people in China, and it's already is the second biggest market in healthcare and pharmaceuticals and it's posed to become the biggest one but if you look at the per capital expenditure China is still lagging very [00:06:00] far behind.
Chenchao: It's only around 10 percent or less, Of that expenditure per capita compared to European level. So there's a lot of to catch up and I think aging population China and also very high pressure for, [00:06:15] a younger generation birth rate. So there's a lot of issues within the society and also the plague by the chronic diseases in various forms.
Chenchao: I just mentioned COPD, but there's also other ways and the cancer [00:06:30] and, uh, heart related diseases. And I think this is also very important after the COVID, like how to also in the community diseases are prevented. Measurement and the very [00:06:45] important role China can have. So I think this is really laid the ground for multinationals to really look into China and the force of their expansion.
Chenchao: And despite all the attention we have touched on, I think there's a lot [00:07:00] of company. Are just announced even further and stronger presence in China, like as Seneca's new research facility in Hong Kong. In Heim also mentioned the billion of investment [00:07:15] going on. So there is still very strong sense that the market due to the high population, due to also the infrastructure because China is still at home.
Chenchao: of a very strong, supplier for biosimilar and and [00:07:30] APIs for big pharmaceuticals around globe. So it's very crucial to have a healthy relationship with China to keep supply chain safe and secure.
Art: Yeah, and that's actually in contrast a little bit to what's been going on in the U. S. [00:07:45] these days.
Art: It's more and more Chinese companies are potentially Congress is in an election year here in the U. S., as is looking at more and more Chinese companies. And now that's extended to the bios and pharmaceutical sector as well, which is, I guess people thought might [00:08:00] happen, but maybe not so quickly.
Art: So that's it seems like Europe is not it is quite different, which is I guess not surprising but that's been in the news here in the U. S. too. And it's living here in San Diego, California, where I know a lot of those, the Chinese companies and U. S. companies, [00:08:15] this is a place where they work together.
Art: It's I don't know, a little bit disheartening to see that happening, but but I guess there's. Anyway, I won't get into the concerns but now that we do put let's say, we put politics to some of the tensions into the mix. How is that starting [00:08:30] at all to influence cooperation between China and Europe?
Art: Like I said, China in the US, I think that's already definitely having an impact, but do you see that having an impact at all between China and Europe? Yeah, definitely. Are there are [00:08:45] big impacts. The question is like how, long term and how quantifiable other impacts. I think everything is put into perspective.
Chenchao: I think compared to other industries health care amount climate are still Thank you. [00:09:00] Very strong, constructive avenue of collaboration, but I do agree with your assessment. There's a difference between US China, European China relationship, and I think underlined by the trip by Chancellor Scholz from [00:09:15] Germany with three ministers and all state secretary level people, three days.
Chenchao: Very long stay. So it's a really strong signal not only to China, but to the rest of the world that we need a very strong dialogue. We need a very [00:09:30] strong, and the Stanford, even we cannot agree on everything on every issues. But I think this kind of. Very pragmatic approach that we need China also to solve major conflicts in Middle East in Ukraine, Russian conflict, [00:09:45] and others.
Chenchao: I think this is just to serve, the best interests of the people who ultimately, At the say in the democracies in the West. So I think when it's come to industry politics I do believe that, of course [00:10:00] Europeans want to, have the access to Chinese market. At the same time, it's very critical.
Chenchao: Look at at, also from the legislative and legal point of view, China. The IP laws, the cyber security laws, and also the [00:10:15] limitation data transfer. These are all the problems, especially also for R& D intensive industry like pharmaceuticals, biotech. And so this is a strong position for European part to get China more to create [00:10:30] a, a fair competition environment.
Chenchao: So this has been a very strong agenda of the trip as well. I personally, as I said, I was organized of the delegation trip myself for the ministry level. And last year I was [00:10:45] invited for the delegation trip by the climate minister from Germany. So I do see a very strong willingness to collaborate.
Chenchao: And to willingness to, to collaborate in field where common dialogue is [00:11:00] possible. And I'm very hopeful to see, and just to stay by Germany in June the economy, Mr. Habeck is going to China as well. So I do think that's within this year very crucial both to the election, as you mentioned, yes.
Chenchao: [00:11:15] But also some very highly watched elections within the states in Germany. So yeah so China West relation has always been very significant.
Art: Yeah, that's, I think there's, that's a great point. Look at that three days and high [00:11:30] level visits like that. And that's really, I don't think there's many other countries that do that.
Art: So of course, certainly not the United States, but there's, that's that As you said, really would show a sign of commitment to the relationship and the markets [00:11:45] opportunities both ways even. And I did also read that Chancellor Schultz said that IP protection, you hit on it.
Art: There is was maybe the chief concern of German companies. And I wonder if. We can get into that as a bit of a side [00:12:00] topic. Is that a is that still a concern for German companies in these sectors we've been talking about? Or is that more, let's say, in some of the traditional auto or other sectors that German companies have been also quite strong in is that I'm [00:12:15] talking about IP protection in China.
Art: I know, because, of course, I practice law cross border there, and I can certainly. The audience, if they've been listening to me, know that I think that IP protection in China has gotten significantly better than it was [00:12:30]