Our reporter/Peng Danni Yuan Suwen

  In Sanlitun, Chaoyang District, Beijing, where trendy men, women, and urban white-collar workers gather, you can choose a street for a walk.

There is one of the top specialized hospitals in China, the Fifth Outpatient Department of Peking University Stomatological Hospital, as well as the Stomatology Department of Beijing Meilai Plastic Surgery Hospital, a medical beauty institution in Putian. Of course, there are more branches of private chain dental clinics, including Joy Oral, Hezhong Dental, Riel Oral...

  Within a radius of 500 meters, there are at least 10 such institutions. They have different storefront environments and doctor resources are also mixed: some institutions have hired doctors from Peking University Stomatological Hospital, and some never mention the graduation of the attending doctor. From which school and education level, I only said that I went to the top three hospitals for further study.

They all offer the same service: orthodontics.

Also known as orthodontic treatment.

  In the eyes of merchants, most of the consumers who travel in Sanlitun are such consumers: young, fashionable, beauty-loving, and able to pay.

And they are the main group of people receiving orthodontic treatment today.

According to the data from the New Oxygen Data Yan Research Institute, which focuses on the medical aesthetics industry, among the oral and dental consumption in 2020, the largest demand is for orthodontic treatment, followed by dental veneers and dental implants, accounting for 69% of the consumption and 69% of the consumption. 10% and 7%.

  Thirty years ago, orthodontics in China was mainly a segment of the oral cavity where adults served minors. However, in recent years, the main population of orthodontics is turning from minors to young beauty lovers.

The commercial market has sensed this shift from "treatment" to "consumption of beauty" because it means a lot of potential demand.

  Whether it is a device manufacturer that provides invisible braces or a downstream medical service organization, they are actively attracting consumers.

However, the bottleneck limiting the rapid expansion of the industry is the severe shortage and uneven distribution of orthodontists in China.

Can the market provide qualified services after the demand explodes?

More money but not enough dentists

  "The business of orthodontics is too hot." This is the feeling of Liu Mengxin, a senior student who is wearing invisible braces.

Since orthodontic treatment for more than two years, she will go to a follow-up consultation every two or three months, and each time she has to wait for a long time. The doctor is very busy, and there are many people waiting for the follow-up consultation.

Moreover, this is not a well-known public hospital or a dental clinic where major experts are in charge, but the dental department of a plastic surgery hospital in Chongqing.

She found that the orthodontics in this institution are basically adult women.

  In 2016, Dr. Xu Ziqing followed his mentor, Professor Shen Gang, who was then the director of the Department of Orthodontics at Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital, and joined Bybo Dental.

Over the years, he has observed that the proportion of adult orthodontic patients has gradually increased.

When I was working in Shanghai No. 9 Hospital, there were many young patients, but now the majority of the patients are in their 20s and 30s.

This is because in their teenage years, orthodontic treatment is not yet common in China and people think orthodontics is difficult and expensive.

But now, they have spending power and have a higher pursuit of beauty.

  Orthodontics is changing from a more serious disease treatment, a need for improved treatment for a small number of people, to a change related to the "appearance economy".

Statistics from CIC show that the number of orthodontic cases in China has increased from 1.6 million in 2015 to 3.1 million in 2020, and is expected to reach 9.5 million in 2030.

Among them, the number of orthodontic cases solved by invisible appliances surged from 47,800 in 2015 to 335,500 in 2020, and is expected to reach 3.8 million in 2030.

  "Actually, there is still a big gap between the proportion of orthodontic treatment in China and developed countries. There are still a considerable number of people in the population who need orthodontic treatment but have not yet received treatment." Xu Baohua, director of the Stomatology Center of China-Japan Friendship Hospital and professor of stomatology at Peking University Say.

  A data that is often cited in the industry is that the overall prevalence of malocclusion in China is about 72%.

In 2020, there were about 1.004 billion cases of malocclusion in China, while only 3.5 million cases received orthodontic treatment in China in the same year.

Malocclusion refers to the misalignment of teeth, including crowding, space, protrusion, etc., and is closely related to genetic, environmental and ethnic factors.

  Qi Xiaohuan, executive director of Yikai Capital, pointed out in an interview with "China News Weekly" that after 2015, with the improvement of social consumption levels, the entire consumer medical care has gradually become popular.

In the field of consumer medical care, oral cavity is the largest sector and has always been concerned by the capital market.

However, the focus of investment has changed. At first, it invested in private dental clinics to support chain expansion, and then the focus gradually shifted to equipment and consumables related to the diagnosis and treatment of oral diseases, including imaging equipment, implants, and invisible orthodontics. instruments, aesthetic restoration supplies, and more.

  According to a report by a consulting firm, China's orthodontic market has grown from US$3.4 billion to US$7.9 billion from 2015 to 2020, and is expected to reach US$29.6 billion by 2030.

Among them, the segmented market of invisible orthodontics has grown faster, and the average annual compound growth rate of the invisible orthodontic market size has reached 44.4% during the same period, far exceeding the average level of the overall orthodontic market.

  Because of its high customer unit price and gross profit margin, orthodontics and implants are the two pillars of the entire dental industry's revenue.

Qi Xiaohuan said that in general, for a mature comprehensive dental clinic, orthodontics can account for 30% to 40% of a clinic's revenue, implants account for 30%, and the rest are cleaning, aesthetic restoration, and periodontal disease treatment. And so on, add up to the remaining 30%.

  Xu Hongfeng, deputy secretary general of the Private Branch of the Chinese Hospital Association, has been responsible for the operation and management of several dental medical groups.

For example, Taikang Bybo's flagship general hospital in Shanghai Ganglu Plaza achieved a turnover of more than 150 million yuan in 2019, which is the highest turnover among single private oral medical institutions in Shanghai.

It is Shen Gang and his students who are in charge of the orthodontic business of this institution. Shen Gang also serves as the medical president of Taikang Bybo Group and the chief orthodontic expert.

  For invisible appliance manufacturers, invisible braces are also a high-margin business.

According to the prospectus data from Times Angel, from 2018 to 2020, the total revenue of Times Angel was 488 million yuan, 646 million yuan and 817 million yuan, respectively, and the gross profit rate during the same period was 63.8%, 64.6% and 70.4% respectively. .

  On June 16, 2021, the "first share of invisible orthodontics" Times Angel was officially listed in Hong Kong.

Some market analysts believe that China's current invisible orthodontic market is similar to the US market many years ago, on the eve of the outbreak, and it is expected that there is still room for dozens of times of growth in the future.

  Stomatology is one of the earliest market-oriented specialist medical treatments in China. As early as the 1990s, dental chain brands represented by Jiamei, Bybo and Riel were established successively.

Orthodontic treatment is not a medical insurance reimbursement item, and people usually do not regard malocclusion as a disease. Conceptually, there are fewer concerns about going to private clinics in the field of correct treatment. Therefore, in this field, public hospitals do not occupy the Identity advantages, and private institutions have more ways to compete for consumers.

  Taking pricing as an example, Xu Baohua said that according to regulations, the cost rate of medical equipment in hospitals should not be higher than 30%, so the price of invisible head braces product Invisima entering the hospital is 16,800 yuan, and the final price for patients is 60,000 yuan. above.

"The pricing standards of public hospitals cannot follow the market, while orthodontics and planting projects in private institutions can be discounted and marketed."

  However, what does not match the rapid gold absorption capacity of the orthodontic industry is that the number of doctors in this industry is seriously insufficient.

The entire dental industry is scrambling for doctors, and orthodontists are a scarcer resource.

In 2020, there are about 158,400 general dentists and 10,800 orthodontists in the United States, which is equivalent to 47.8 general dentists and 3.3 orthodontists per 100,000 people.

In contrast, in 2020, there are about 277,500 general dentists and 6,100 orthodontists in China, which is equivalent to only 19.5 general dentists and 0.4 orthodontists per 100,000 people.

  The 6,100 orthodontists are facing more than 110,000 dental institutions in China, with fewer monks and more porridge.

As the top group of people on the pyramid of dentistry, most orthodontists choose to practice in first-tier cities or developed eastern cities.

In a prefecture-level city in Hubei, when I randomly consulted a dental clinic, the resume of the director of the orthodontics department did not indicate the college or major he graduated from, but simply wrote "practicing physician".

  Bu Yunlu, the market leader of the domestic invisible appliance brand "Meizai", which is actively exploring the sinking market, told China News Weekly that in third- and fourth-tier cities, there are almost no orthodontists in the strict sense, and most of them are orthodontists. General dentist.

Especially in those private dental clinics in the county market, most of them are general practitioners, and they may not even have the qualifications of dental doctors.

And these markets have a lot of potential invisible correction patients who need to be served.

How Invisalign took China by storm

  Liu Mengxin began to understand various types of orthodontic methods since her freshman year, and finally chose invisible correction.

One of her considerations is that she is a student majoring in journalism and communication, and some coursework needs to appear in the camera, and the "steel-toothed girl" will greatly affect her appearance.

Moreover, her orthodontist said that her teeth are not serious, and she can wear about 55 sets of braces to complete the correction, which will not take more time than traditional orthodontics.

  Compared with traditional bracket correction, invisible correction is more and more popular in the market because it is more beautiful and comfortable.

The cultivation and rise of China's invisible correction market started from the intruder "Invisible Beauty".

Invisalign is the first invisible appliance brand established in California in the 1990s. The company behind it is Aiqi Technology.

  After Invisalign officially entered China in 2011, it has developed rapidly.

From 2013 to 2017, the compound annual growth rate of Aiqi's revenue in China reached 102%.

For many years, "Invisible Beauty" has even become synonymous with invisible orthodontics in China.

And many of its market strategies have also been imitated by other rising stars in China.

  In the industry, orthodontic equipment is a To-B and then To-C sales model, that is, it needs to be promoted among doctors first, and then recommended by doctors to patients.

Because invisible braces are not sold directly to consumers, as with the sale of any drug, opinion leaders and academic outreach play an important role.

Cooperating with experts can play the role of academic leadership and brand endorsement.

Xu Hongfeng said that the academic leader is also equivalent to the R&D director of a product. He cooperates with the company to carry out application R&D in the clinical front line, and continuously upgrade the product iteratively.

  The academic leader of Invisalign was Zhou Yanheng, the then director of the Department of Orthodontics at Peking University Stomatological Hospital.

In April 2011, Zhou Yanheng led a symposium on Invisalign at Peking University Stomatological Hospital, "officially introducing this technology to orthodontists all over China." The participants included more than 95% of the university-affiliated stomatological hospitals and specialist departments in China. Orthodontists, including the director of the Orthodontics Department of the Stomatological Hospital.

  Today, more than 80% of the business of the private chain "Saide Sunshine Dental" founded by Zhou Yanheng comes from orthodontics, and it was also authorized by Aiqi Company as "Invisible Beauty China Center" in 2015.

Zhou Yanheng attended an event at the end of February this year in Said Sunshine with executives from Aiqi Technology.

According to the company's press release, as a certified physician of China Invisalign 00001, Zhou Yanheng said, "I led the team to take the lead in conducting research on invisible orthodontic systems... It can be said that Saide Sunshine Dental and Aiqi Technology have developed from Since we met, it is like 'ten-year old friends' supporting each other and achieving success along the way."

  A large number of certified doctors is the core link of Invisalign's business model.

Aiqi has replicated the Invisalign doctor training and certification system in China, and has set up training centers in Chengdu and Shanghai.

It is not difficult to become an Invisalign Certified Physician.

Hao Jianjun, an orthodontist practicing in more than 20 clinics in the United States, told China News Weekly that the training of Invisalign is relatively basic. One day's course is about the basic principles of tooth movement, and then it is to teach doctors how to submit cases, how to follow Aiqi company's technical staff to communicate.

  An orthodontist told China News Weekly that this training and certification system is actually a sales strategy.

The more cases a doctor submits, the more he will be promoted, and he will get more learning opportunities, rebates, etc. in return.

Later, it slowly evolved into a judgment system in the industry.

He said that the doctor was equivalent to "Party A", and the doctor himself decided whether to use Invisalign or not, but later, after Invisalign issued a certificate to the doctor, the situation changed.

  Doctors in China who lack educational background or technology often like to hang the manufacturer's "certified doctor" certificate in a very conspicuous position in the clinic as a kind of proof of their professionalism.

  Hao Jianjun said that in the United States, Invisalign has also awakened many people who did not intend to undergo orthodontics, especially many adults.

They had concerns about the aesthetics and comfort of braces, and now they are thinking about orthodontics after seeing this new appliance.

  The academic leader of the invisible appliance brand "Zheng Ya" with the third domestic market share is Shen Gang.

In many reports, Smartee has been promoting the "Smart Jaw Reconstruction Invisibility Technology" developed by the company and Shen Gang's team, namely Smartee GS series products.

According to reports, in 2021, Taikang Bybo and Zhengya will jointly hold 19 large-scale tour lectures on GS technology, and about 15 other various department meetings, intensive classes, and exchange meetings, and the number of trained doctors will reach 15,000, setting a new record in the field of dentistry. The largest number of technical training.

  Another domestic brand, “Mei Immediately” has its own unique academic leader, but according to Buyunlu, in terms of promotion to doctors, from 2018 to the present, Meixian has basically held more than 1,000 sessions across the country every year. Academic conference, let those dentists who want to carry out orthodontic treatment but have no experience come to the conference to popularize some orthodontic knowledge and help them how to master invisible appliances.

  The research report of Guoyuan Securities pointed out that most of the domestic dentists learned invisible orthodontic technology after 2010, and the cases of invisible appliance solution providers such as Invisalign, Times Angel and other companies expanded rapidly, and the manufacturers continued to promote academically. of.

Digital Orthodontics: An Attempt to Lower the Threshold for Orthodontics

  The scarcity of orthodontists has become the main limitation of the invisible orthodontic industry and the key to the formation of players' competitive advantages.

  China's invisible orthodontic solutions market is highly concentrated.

According to the cases reached in 2020, Aiqi Technology from the United States accounted for 41.4% of this field, and the local company Angel of the Times accounted for 41%, and the two together accounted for nearly 80% of the market.

If the domestic brand Zhengya, which ranks third and accounts for 8.6%, is taken out, other brands can only share the remaining 9%.

The contrast is stark.

  The key barrier for top brands is the preemption of doctor resources.

"Now the entire orthodontic industry is facing this problem, that is, orthodontic manufacturers are all staring at Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen and first-tier cities, but the doctor resources in these places have been 'divided up' almost, and the good fruits have almost been picked. Yes." Qi Xiaohuan pointed out.

  A more important reason why invisible appliances are placed on high hopes by manufacturers and capital is that invisible appliances can improve the efficiency of doctors and reduce the threshold for doctors to use them.

In order to further develop doctor resources, in addition to providing training and certification, upstream invisible appliance manufacturers are also focusing on digitalization to reduce the manual operation of doctors.

  Unlike fixed bracket correction, which absolutely relies on the manual operation of doctors, the birth of invisible orthodontics is accompanied by digitalization.

In 1997, Zia Chishti, who had just finished orthodontic treatment and had a background in computer software, started from personal experience and believed that the effect of tooth movement could be calculated by combining computer image technology, and then used it as a model to produce transparent appliances at different stages. The origin of beauty.

  An investor in the dental field once wrote that due to the inefficiency of traditional medical care, dental and ophthalmology departments with a high degree of commercialization have begun to actively seek solutions.

In the dental industry, all processes of invisible orthodontics have digital participation.

  For example, in terms of data acquisition, a few years ago, the intraoral scanner iTero of Aiqi Technology was launched in China.

It is revolutionary in that it can obtain patient dental data more easily. The scanning speed is fast, comfortable and can be digitally archived. Every time a patient is revisited, a dental scan can be performed to track and compare the progress of the treatment, which is completely different from the silicone rubber model in the past. .

In the design phase, invisible orthodontics combined computer image technology to calculate the effect of tooth movement, and then used it as a model to produce transparent appliances at different stages.

  Driven by digitalization, many general dentists can more easily join the orthodontic army.

From 2018 to 2020, the number of dentists certified by Angel of Times increased from about 11,500 to 19,900 in 2020, many of which came from general dentists.

  Zhou Li, deputy director of the Department of Orthodontics, West China Stomatological Hospital of Sichuan University, said that invisible orthodontics have fewer visits than traditional fixed orthodontics, usually once every two or three months, and do not require bending steel wires and sticking brackets like fixed orthodontics. When waiting for the operation by the chair, you can only use the doctor to look at it, which improves the efficiency. In the past, only a few patients were admitted a day, but now 20 or 30 patients who follow up can be seen.

  "This is the benefit that technology brings to us." Hao Jianjun, an orthodontist working in the United States, said that invisible orthodontic technology is in the right direction, which is to reduce the workload of doctors and allow more people to enjoy the technical dividends.

After having products like Invisalign, it does bring a lot of convenience to the doctor's orthodontic treatment.

  In 2020, about 32% of orthodontic cases in the United States use invisible orthodontics, which is much higher than the domestic market, and the penetration rate of the domestic market is therefore considered to still have a lot of room.

However, many interviewees pointed out that the basic condition of Americans' teeth is much better than that of China. Many people have mild irregularities, or they have been corrected once in childhood, and then adjusted slightly after relapse in adulthood. Invisible correction is suitable for more people.

  Some people in the industry believe that many simple cases can be handled by general dentists with the help of the digital assistant platform and designer team of invisible orthodontic manufacturers.

But without the participation of a professional orthodontist, there are still problems.

  Zhou Yanheng pointed out that invisible aligners may not be able to achieve the planned movement steps or distances. For example, if the designed movement is 1 mm, the result is only 0.5 or 0.7 mm, which is difficult to control, so an experienced doctor is needed to control it.

"Orthodontics must be a medical practice and must be operated by an orthodontist. Orthodontics is a branch with the highest technical content in stomatology, and it involves periodontal tissue, teeth, temporomandibular joints, face and jaw, etc. Once the operation is performed, Improperly, these systems could all be compromised," he said.

  "Orthodontic treatment is not as simple as taking pictures of teeth, aligning them on the computer, and then using software to automatically generate dozens of molds." An orthodontist said bluntly.

Different from doctors in many traditional departments, due to the high degree of marketization, orthodontists flow frequently, which allows some doctors who are not skilled in the market to "shoot a shot for another place" in the market, and also lack a sense of responsibility.

Remote orthodontics: "deformed" orthodontics

  When traditional invisible aligner manufacturers are still trying to solve the problem of the shortage of domestic orthodontists and the difficulty in developing the vast sinking market through the means of doctor education and technology, some companies have begun to sell invisible braces directly on the Internet. The "new consumption" approach is brought into the orthodontic industry.

  On Xiaohongshu, search for "invisible orthodontics" and click on a video of a beautiful woman in her 20s.

She said to the camera that she had been orthopedic twice in a provincial capital city in the west, but for various reasons, her teeth were messier than before the orthodontic treatment.

This time she has to correct it again and chooses to use invisible braces.

Compared with the price of 50,000 to 60,000 yuan for Invisible Beauty, the price of "Smile Formula" is 15,000 yuan, which is very suitable for a girl like her who wants to have teeth straightened but doesn't want to spend too much money, and doesn't want to wear steel teeth to look unsightly.

The transition from medical behavior to consumer products requires a youth-led promotion language that de-authorizes it.

  In 2019, the remote orthodontic platform company "Smile Formula" was established.

Its founding team, CEO Xu Yinglin and COO Zhang Zenan graduated from Harvard Business School with MBA.

After being exposed to the cost-effective DTC (Direct-to-consumer, "direct-to-consumer") orthodontic model in the United States, it was decided to bring this model back to China.

  Xu and Zhang have no medical background. Xu Yinglin worked on Wall Street before and had several entrepreneurial experiences; Zhang Zenan worked in the strategy department of Didi Chuxing and was good at customer acquisition and user conversion.

Xu Yinglin said in an interview with the media that the competitiveness of the smile formula lies in the execution ability and delivery ability of its core team.

In April 2020, Smile Formula received an angel round of financing of tens of millions of RMB.

  Also in 2019, "vvsmile", which localized and improved this model, was established, and the following year received a tens of millions of yuan in state-owned background angel round financing.

According to media reports in 2021, the company’s valuation has exceeded 500 million yuan.

  In the United States, the industry benchmark for "direct-to-consumer" is Smile Direct Club (hereinafter referred to as "SDC"), which was established in 2014, and it is SDC that Smile Formula hopes to target.

SDC introduced the concept of retail into the field of orthodontics, and its main selling point is simplicity and cheapness.

  SDC customers take 3D images of their teeth in designated stores or send them to the company after taking dental film themselves. After a few weeks, they will receive invisible aligners from the company and send oral photos to the company every 90 days as required.

The DTC model of Smile Direct Club skips doctors and outpatient clinics, greatly reducing the labor cost of orthodontics, thus providing a lower price for its own products. The price of Invisalign is $5,000 to $8,000, and SDC orthodontics only cost about $2,000. .

Similarly, the smile formula is priced at 14,999 yuan.

  In the United States, however, companies such as SDC are controversial in the industry.

As early as 2018, the American Association of Orthodontists issued a consumer alert that remote orthodontic companies such as SDC, Candid Co. and SmileLove made it seem easier and cheaper for patients to skip dentist appointments and X-rays. Money, in fact, "will bring medical risks."

  SDC claims that the team of doctors behind it reviews who is suitable for the company's orthodontic treatment.

In 2020, CBC News dispatched four "undercover agents" to conduct unannounced visits to four SDC offline stores in the Toronto area of ​​Canada.

All four were approved by the SDC to undergo orthodontic treatment and wear braces.

However, senior orthodontists agreed that the treatment plans for three of them should not have been approved.

Among the other patients interviewed, some had broken teeth because of the treatment, and some had tooth loosening and bone resorption.

The report was published in March of that year.

  SDC was listed on the Nasdaq in September 2019 at an issue price of $23, and has since broken all the way. By March 18, 2022, the stock price was only $2.84.

The company's revenue also declined after hitting $750 million in 2019, with revenue of $657 million in 2020 and $638 million in 2021.

  Compared with traditional invisible orthodontic companies, direct-to-consumer remote orthodontic companies require high marketing investment to acquire customers.

From 2019 to 2021, the combined marketing, administrative and management costs of Aiqi Technology accounted for 44.5%, 48.6% and 43.2% of total revenue, respectively.

In the same period, SDC's figures were as high as 141.6%, 96.67% and 112% respectively.

  Founded in February 2020, FourSmile is also a direct-to-consumer dental invisible orthodontic platform. The official website has publicly announced that "Invisible Beauty, Zhengli Technology" is the official brand.

In July 2020, FourSmile Forssman issued a press release: "Invisible Beauty creates the Foursmile Forssman model to de-intermediate Internet invisible orthodontics", which caused a boycott of domestic dentists. The company or platform that sells invisible appliances is not affiliated in any way."

  In China, there are not a few companies imitating SDC.

Our reporter searches for "invisible braces" on the e-commerce platform Taobao, and you will find a variety of brands and sellers.

Some of these processes are simpler than companies like Smile Formulas, which need to go to offline stores to get dental information and review.

  For example, an invisible appliance sold by an online store can be corrected for only 198 yuan and 5 to 9 months. It does not require any case data at all. You can place an order directly online. It contains three sets of braces, two of which are used for Correction.

Generally speaking, according to the different situations of dental malocclusion, invisible orthodontics requires 30 to 70 sets of braces, which are continuously adjusted according to the progress.

When the reporter asked, this 198 yuan invisible correction package only has two pairs of aligners, will there be a situation where the teeth move and cannot be worn?

The other party replied, "The braces are designed according to the Asian standard dental arch trajectory, and the memory rebound effect is very good."

  "This is a very deformed state in the development of the invisible orthodontic industry." An industry insider said bluntly that invisible aligners are Class II medical devices. Use on the patient by a qualified operator.

  In fact, he said, a group of companies with this type of DTC model have already "died" around 2019, including brands such as "360 Beauty Teeth". Now the second generation DTC is on the market. The patient is diverted to the offline clinic, put on a legal shell, and then directly sends the braces product to the user.

Once the correction period ends and no effect can be produced, this trick can no longer be performed, so it will not last long.

  Almost all the interviewees held the view that orthodontic appliances are fundamentally medical products and cannot be directly faced to consumers. This is a very important principle, and it is more the doctor than the appliance that determines the treatment effect.

Qi Xiaohuan added from another perspective that the only thing that can prove that algorithms and big data can replace doctors is to obtain the permission of the national drug administration.

It would be possible if a company could demonstrate in large-scale clinical trials that these software and computer technologies can safely and effectively accomplish orthodontics without the involvement of a doctor, rather than a concept, but so far, there is no Companies are trying to do this.

Will sinking the market be a good business?

  The market size of invisible orthodontics in China has grown from US$200 million in 2015 to US$1.5 billion in 2020, with a CAGR of 44.4%, and is expected to reach US$11.9 billion in 2030 – that is, from 2020 to In the ten years to 2030, the market may have an increase of about 10 billion US dollars.

  Before 2019, the orthodontic industry was not active in the capital market, but in the past two years, financing events in this field have begun to increase significantly.

According to statistics, from January to August 2021 alone, there will be 9 financing events, and a single round of financing is generally at the level of 100 million yuan.

  According to data from the State Drug Administration, as of January 2021, there were 125 valid registration certificates for invisible orthodontic products in China, held by 104 companies.

In a research report released by CICC in 2021, it pointed out that invisible orthodontic appliances are Class II medical devices in China. Manufacturers only need to register with the provincial drug administration where they are located, and the process is relatively simple. Apply - Accept - Get Results".

  Bu Yunlu, the head of the US market, pointed out that one of the important time points was the expiration of the core patent of Invisalign in 2017, and the market began to flood into a large number of competitors.

  With the increasingly fierce competition in the invisible orthodontic market in recent years, some companies have begun to focus on the sinking market.

The so-called market sinking refers to geographic sinking, which promotes the market from first-tier cities to third- and fourth-tier cities and even county towns; on the other hand, it is the sinking of payment ability, that is, merchants can offer more affordable prices to include more Consumers with limited ability to pay.

  There are many such small companies in the country.

Bu Yunlu said frankly that such a so-called follower brand has a weak academic discourse power, and it is difficult to compete with the two giants in terms of brand, technology and product strength.

Moreover, thousands of orthodontic specialists in China have been "incorporated" by the top two manufacturers. It is difficult for them to seek cooperation among these doctors. Therefore, to survive, they can only find another way to open up the sinking market.

  Whether the digital invisible orthodontic technology can enable more primary dentists to master orthodontics, this question has not yet been answered.

As far as the business model is concerned, whether the sinking market really has great potential has not yet been reached in the industry.

  In China's primary dental market, people have limited purchasing power and are more sensitive to price. A large number of dental clinics have not yet been able to carry out orthodontic business. The demand for education and training of doctors will be high, but the average output of each doctor may be very limited. So sinking the market is not an easy task.

  Buyunlu said that many domestic brands are following the route of parity. "In the future, the invisible orthodontic cost of simple cases can be controlled within 10,000 yuan, which is our goal." He is not very worried about the profit after the price reduction. When the industry becomes more inclusive, the amount of orthodontic demand released will no longer be in the order of hundreds of thousands, but in the order of millions.

  At the same time, medical beauty companies also began to get involved in the field of orthodontics.

According to the "2020 White Paper on Oral Medical Care", there are currently two main types of institutions that provide oral medical services on the O2O platform: professional dental institutions and stomatology of medical beauty institutions.

Among the 2029 dental medical institutions in the new oxygen database, dental medical care accounted for 44.8%, while the dental department of medical beauty institutions accounted for 55.2%.

  刘萌欣就是在重庆比较大的一家整形医院——重庆美莱整形美容医院做的正畸。据该公司的官网介绍,美莱集团1999年成立于四川省成都,旗下拥有“美莱”“紫馨”“登特口腔”3大知名品牌和36家医疗美容连锁医院。美莱是一家莆田系医院,据媒体报道,莆田“四大家”中的陈家,以陈金秀和陈建煌为代表,其中,陈金秀主要运作“美莱”和“华美”两个整形品牌。

  当医美机构积极地吸引人们来做牙齿矫正时,上游牙套供货商也在这个市场布局。据报道,几家头部隐形矫治品牌近年来也开辟了医美业务线,和大型医美机构签订集团打包采购协议,在保证一年采购量的前提下,以相对较低的价格供货。

  当正畸与颜值绑得越来越紧密时,正畸行业争夺流量不再是依靠传统广告,而是主打一种更接近医美宣传的品牌调性。在各种社交媒体上,各种UP主们不断展示一口整齐、洁白的牙齿带来的变化,撩拨起那些对自己牙齿不够自信和满意的人们行动起来、改变自己。但这些信息真假难辨。

  今年3月末,因涉及虚假宣传,一家美妆时尚领域的内容整合营销公司“趣摩文化”被上海浦东新区市场监督管理局罚款45万元。这家公司在2020年末与隐形矫治品牌正雅齿科签订了一笔33.92万的合同,随机招募400名流量博主,要求他们根据宣传文案撰写有关正雅隐形牙套的使用体验和正面评价的推广图文,经正雅最终确认后在小红书上发布,然而这些发布者们并非真实的使用者。

  据媒体近期报道,2018年2月,一位女生通过微博广告流找到坐拥135万粉丝、有“光华口腔”学历傍身的广州海斯口腔诊所,前后花费3万元做牙齿正畸。然而牙齿矫正三年,口腔不适感却越来越明显。她前往广州多家三甲医院就诊,发现全口牙槽骨重度吸收、口腔骨开创开裂,出现创伤性咬合,可能会出现全口牙齿脱落的问题。这家口腔诊所宣称其院长曾经在中山大学附属口腔医院任职,然而事后被查明为虚假宣传,该口腔诊所被广州越秀区卫健委处以警告并累计罚款44万元。

  In August 2021, the Chinese Stomatological Association issued a document to resist some industry chaos. The association wrote that in recent years, there have been a large number of cosmetic brands in China, with low standards or even no threshold to enter the so-called "oral beauty" and "beauty teeth". The personnel in the industry have seriously disrupted the normative development of the oral medical industry, and brought harm to the oral health of the people and the health of other systems in the whole body.

  Some industry media wrote in an article at the end of last year that in the dental field, no matter how capital is accelerated, it will eventually be trapped in a limited number of dentists.

Disregarding these accelerated expansions, or relying more on equipment and external factors, will only lead to chaos in the industry.

  (Liu Mengxin is a pseudonym in the article; intern Yu Haoqing also contributed to this article)