Growth stalls, wealth is "cut in half," and cosmetic surgery tycoons are losing their "hyaluronic acid scepter."

Ask AI · What are the deep industry logic changes behind the wealth shrinkage?

21st Century Business Herald Reporter Ling Chen

When the tide recedes, you realize the true quality. By 2025, the financial reports of medical aesthetics companies collectively bid farewell to the “high-growth myth,” marking the industry’s transition from wild growth driven by dividends to a deep adjustment cycle of stock-based competition and logical restructuring.

According to the latest disclosed performance data, profits of leading companies have generally declined. In the hyaluronic acid sector, Aesthetic Medical Group experienced its first revenue and net profit decline since listing, with non-recurring net profit down over 40% year-on-year; Haohai Biologicals’ net profit plummeted 40.3% year-on-year.

The collagen track was also not spared; Jubo Biotech recorded its first decline in both revenue and profit since listing. Jinbo Biotech, though with slight revenue growth, fell into a dilemma of “increased revenue but no profit.”

Against this background, the net worth of the once-batch of billionaires created by the industry has generally shrunk, and the logic of wealth is undergoing a brutal return from “valuation bubbles” to “industry real value.”

In this context, a bottom-layer logical restructuring for “breaking the deadlock” is underway. On one hand, medical aesthetics companies are trying to reshape global valuation through overseas expansion. On the other hand, some disruptors are shifting from single-point components to “full-scenario solutions,” such as Jinbo Biotech achieving full dosage form coverage.

More critically, as compliance red lines tighten, industry entry barriers are further raised. The future throne will no longer belong to pioneers who simply capture dividends, but to long-distance runners capable of wielding research and development blades under compliance red lines and deploying global industry tracks.

As the annual performances of major leading companies are released one after another, the once “profitable era” of medical aesthetics, with gross profit margins comparable to Moutai and revenue growth often doubling, is being declared over with reports of “increased revenue but no profit” or even “double declines in core indicators.”

As the flag-bearers of the wealth creation movement, the “Three Musketeers” of medical aesthetics have first felt the chill brought by technological equality and stock-based competition.

Aesthetic Medical Group faces its most severe test since listing. It is reported that in 2025, the company’s revenue was 2.45 billion yuan, down nearly 19% year-on-year; net profit attributable to the parent was 1.29 billion yuan, down 34.05%.

In its fifth year since listing, Aesthetic Medical Group’s revenue and net profit first experienced negative growth. Core products like solutions and gels have seen a clear slowdown in growth. In 2025, revenue from solution-type injection products was 1.26 billion yuan, down 27.48% year-on-year; gel-type injection products earned 890 million yuan, down 26.82%.

Although the gross margin of core products remains above 90%, the downward trend has not been reversed.

Another hyaluronic acid giant, Haohai Biologicals, reported revenue of 2.47B yuan in 2025, a decrease of 8.33% year-on-year; net profit was 251 million yuan, down 40.3%. The three major sectors—medical aesthetics, ophthalmology, and orthopedics—are collectively under pressure. Among them, medical beauty and wound care products declined by 12.97% year-on-year.

It is worth noting that from 2021 to 2025, Haohai Biologicals’ revenue growth rates were 32.61%, 20.56%, 24.59%, 1.64%, and -8.33%. It can be seen that in 2024, the company’s revenue growth had already significantly slowed, and 2025 posted the worst revenue results in nearly five years.

As the narrative around hyaluronic acid gradually weakens, the once highly anticipated and “power transfer” leading recombinant collagen duo also hit a growth ceiling in 2025.

Jinbo Biotech, the first collagen company listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange, experienced its first profit decline since listing. On one hand, after tax policy adjustments, Jinbo Biotech’s related medical device value-added tax rate was increased from 3% to 13% starting January 1, 2025.

On the other hand, the revenue share of functional skincare products increased, but this category has a lower gross margin than medical devices. The combination of these factors directly lowered overall profitability.

In the secondary market, after reaching a high of over 450 yuan in May 2025, Jinbo Biotech’s stock price has been fluctuating downward. As of April 3, 2026, the stock fell to 177.02 yuan per share, with a market value of 20.37 billion yuan.

Similarly, Giga Biotech, the first collagen company listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, experienced the same situation. In fiscal year 2025, the company achieved revenue of 5.52B yuan, a slight decrease of 0.4% year-on-year; net profit was 90B yuan, down 7.1%.

Like the above companies, this was also Giga Biotech’s first dual slowdown in revenue and profit since listing.

Multiple factors combined, shaking investor confidence. The market value fell from a high of over 900 billion Hong Kong dollars, shrinking by over 50 billion HKD in half a year. As of April 3, Giga Biotech closed at 28.34 HKD per share, with a total market value of 30.35 billion HKD.

Under the dual pressure of performance and stock price, this is not only a collective profit slowdown but also an inevitable pain in the industry’s return from “valuation myths” to “industry common sense.” It also signifies that when technological equality levels the once-lucrative profit gap, the era of “lying flat” on component dividends is over.

In the current deep reshaping of valuation logic, the fortunes of giants in medical aesthetics have become a vivid mirror reflecting the underlying logic of the “beauty economy.”

Looking back a few years, the medical aesthetics track was once a super production line for creating billionaires, with the component dividend centered on hyaluronic acid building a very solid moat. The capital market highly valued the scarcity of medical aesthetic consumables.

Early on, Aesthetic Medical Group was dubbed the “medical beauty Moutai” by the capital market for its super high gross profit margin exceeding 90%. From 2011 to 2016, the actual controller Jian Jun served as chairman.

In 2020, Aesthetic Medical Group successfully listed on the capital market. The same year, Jian Jun ranked 183rd on the Forbes China 400 Richest List with a wealth of 20.68 billion yuan. Over the next three years, driven by the booming medical aesthetics sector and strong company performance, Jian Jun’s wealth soared with the market value, achieving exponential growth.

According to Hurun Rich List and Forbes, Jian Jun’s wealth peaked at 52.5 billion yuan in 2023.

During those prosperous years, the rising fortunes of founders reflected early industry blue ocean dividends. It seemed that holding that transparent syringe was holding the scepter to the throne of wealth.

Compared to Jian Jun, Haohai Biologicals’ actual controller Jiang Wei, who does not hold a position in the listed company and does not participate in daily operations, maintains control through a 45.82% stake held jointly with his spouse, with long-term absolute control over the company.

Similarly, from 2020 to 2023, according to Hurun Rich List, Jiang Wei and his wife’s wealth peaked at 11 billion yuan.

However, as the hyaluronic acid sector entered valuation correction and industry cooling, the wealth curves of these controllers began to fluctuate downward. After 2023, Jian Jun’s wealth dropped from 27.5 billion yuan in 2024 to 25 billion yuan in 2025.

Jiang Wei and his wife’s wealth also declined year by year, falling to 7.5 billion yuan by October 2025 on the Hurun Rich List.

Yet, technological iteration always outpaces capital expectations. The idolization of medical aesthetics has never stopped.

The cooling of hyaluronic acid, coupled with the rise of collagen, has shifted wealth to the new collagen giants, who have produced two regional female billionaires.

Yang Xia of Jinbo Biotech and Fan Daidi of Giga Biotech, leveraging their research and transformation of recombinant humanized collagen, have achieved astonishing wealth leaps in a short period.

In October 2023, Yang Xia entered the Hurun Rich List with 5.5 billion yuan.

In less than two and a half years, in the 2026 Hurun Global Self-Made Women Entrepreneurs List, Yang Xia’s wealth reached 16.5 billion yuan, ranking 63rd. In fact, another collagen giant, Fan Daidi, ranked 47th with a wealth of 2.1 billion yuan.

However, in the power shifts within the medical aesthetics industry, there has never been a truly evergreen throne. As technological equality levels the playing field, the mean reversion driven by overcapacity and price wars has become an inevitable narrative in the sector’s cycle.

In other words, the current collagen track is inevitably replaying the valuation correction path of the hyaluronic acid industry. The fluctuations in the secondary market and the shrinking of controllers’ wealth are not unexpected.

Bidding farewell to the old era of wild wealth creation, the capital market’s coordinate system is being recalibrated. When the premium of technology is thoroughly diluted by mean reversion, component-based medical aesthetics also bid farewell to scarcity dividends. Industry giants no longer focus solely on financial report figures but turn their winning strategies to drug and device exports, cross-sector integration, and extreme compliance.

“Seeking new growth opportunities” has become a common consensus among giants.

In the 2025 financial report, Giga Biotech explicitly proposed “return to growth in 2026.” This is reflected in overseas expansion and the certification and listing of three categories of drugs and devices.

2025 is defined as Giga Biotech’s year of overseas expansion. It is reported that the company’s products have entered markets in Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, and other countries, and have reached North American online channels, with plans to expand channels, brands, organizational, and industrial ecosystems.

Additionally, Giga Biotech plans to make a “big move” in medical aesthetics by incubating new brands like Liyan.

Jinbo Biotech’s overseas expansion started earlier. It is reported that the company’s recombinant human collagen lyophilized fibers have been approved for listing in Malaysia, marking another foothold in Southeast Asia after entering Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand.

On March 24, Aesthetic Medical Group announced that it fully recognizes the cyclical nature of industry development. The company will accelerate the landing of its research pipeline, including new products in weight management and hair health; meanwhile, steadily advancing investment and acquisition strategies to explore new growth opportunities.

Notably, in March 2025, Aesthetic Medical Group announced the acquisition of South Korea’s REGEN Biotech, Inc., integrating the global sales of its core products AestheFill and PowerFill. Both products have been approved and launched in 37 and 24 countries and regions worldwide.

Behind these giants’ overseas expansion is the beginning of Chinese medical aesthetics companies engaging in close competition with international giants. The premium supporting this behavior is no longer low costs but differentiated technologies with independent intellectual property rights. Overseas expansion is essentially an effort to reshape valuation models internationally, using the depth and breadth of global markets to hedge against domestic sector overcompetition.

Another attempt at breaking the deadlock is to break through the constraints of existing components. On January 8, Aesthetic Medical Group announced that its injectable A-type botulinum toxin product had obtained the drug registration certificate issued by the National Medical Products Administration. This is China’s seventh compliant botulinum toxin product.

From the industry competition landscape, the early market advantage of botulinum toxin has been largely exhausted. Aesthetic Medical Group’s core logic for breaking the deadlock lies in leveraging its large existing customer base and well-established distribution channels to verify whether it can complete a strategic leap from a single filler supplier to a provider of “comprehensive facial solutions” by filling the key gap in botulinum toxin.

Therefore, whether this product can become a new growth point for Aesthetic Medical Group remains uncertain.

Additionally, Jinbo Biotech’s full coverage of dosage forms—solutions, gels, and lyophilized products—also reflects this defensive expansion.

Haohai Biologicals’ expansion approach is more direct. The company states it is focusing on acquisition and investment opportunities within the industry to continuously expand and improve its product line and integrate the industry chain. Meanwhile, it is deepening internal resource coordination, further strengthening integration of acquired companies across R&D, manufacturing, sales, and service.