Team:SCU-China/Entrepreneurship
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Market Background
1.Cordycepin has broad market prospects
As a health product with anti-cancer effect, cordycepin has sufficient demand and broad market prospects. As one of the most deadly diseases in the world, cancer has the characteristics of high mortality and heavy economic burden on families. With the improvement of economic and medical level, more and more diseases have been effectively prevented and treated, but cancer still continues to bring more and more threats to human health. In 2015, the number of cancer cases In China was about 3.93 million, and the death toll was more than 2.30 million. For more than a decade, cancer rates have increased about 3.9 percent a year and death rates have increased 2.5 percent. In this serious situation of cancer, drugs with anti-cancer effects have been widely concerned by the public. Cordyceps sinensis, which is believed to have anti-cancer effects, has been proved to be free of anti-cancer substances such as penstatin and cordycepin. The market is in urgent need of substitutes for Cordyceps sinensis. The market prospect of Cordyceps militaris ,which is rich in c cordycepin, and related products will become very promising.
The market capacity of healthcare products is huge and people pay more and more attention to healthcare products. According to the China industry research institute, the market size of healthcare products in China reached 261.33 billion yuan in 2016 and increased to 293.89 billion yuan in 2017.The growth rate reached 12.46%.According to China's economic situation and industry trends, it is estimated that the market size of China's healthcare products industry will exceed 350 billion yuan by 2020.
Source: China Industrial Research Institute The United States ranks first in the global healthcare products market in 2018, with over $70 billion. The second one is the Chinese market, where the healthcare product industry is worth more than $40 billion.
The natural product identified and isolated in Cordyceps sinensis, cordyceps sinensis, has entered the phase iii clinical stage as an anticancer and antiviral drug in the United States, so it has a broad prospect in anticancer.
The questionnairealso reflects the trust and confidence of the public, especially the young people, in cordycepin.At the same time, cordycepin has other effects such as antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antiviral, hypoglycemic, hypolipidemic enhance its market value as a health product.
2.Cordycepin is difficult to obtain and has high preparation cost
However, the high production cost of cordycepin limits its application.Common production methods include natural Cordyceps Sinensis extraction, chemical synthesis and biosynthesis, which are not enough to support mass production and marketization of Cordyceps Sinensis.
The three production methods all have the problem of high cost, and the chemical synthesis method whose production can only meet the demand of the market faces the problems of purification difficulty, low public acceptance, and complicated process.
Currently, there is no suitable chemical synthesis method for mass production and commercial application of cordycepin. The market is in urgent need of a large-scale, low-cost cordycepin production method to break the barriers to the commercial use of cordycepin.
In order to adapt to mass production and commercial use, the ideal production mode should have the following characteristics:
- Low production cost and easy access to raw materials
- Large output which is easy to control
- Relatively low technical requirements
- The cordycepin concentration in the product reaches a certain level to ensure the value of further concentration and purification
- No toxic substance remained
Our technology should meet the above requirements, meet the market demand of cordyceps mass production mode, and fill this part of the market blank.
The Direction of Industrial Production Optimization
In order to determine the direction of optimization, we conducted a series of investigations and comparisons between chemical synthesis and biosynthesis. Compared with chemical synthesis, biosynthesis has no risk of residual toxic chemicals, and the entire production process only USES the existing fermentation purification technology and equipment with low requirements for production conditions. The main cost of biosynthesis is the culture medium and the purification process. With the improvement of fermentation technology, its cost still has a lot of room to reduce. At the same time, the public prefers biological and natural extraction methods to chemical methods. Consumers even accept that biological and natural extraction methods are more expensive than chemical methods, which makes biosynthesis methods have more market value. Therefore, we chose the biosynthesis route for further improvement.
Product Advantages
1.Technical advantages
The uniqueness of our technology lies in the simultaneous fermentation of PTN and cordycepin, since PTN, which is also of great market value, protects COR's stability by inhibiting adenosine deaminase (ADA) activity. Therefore, protecter-protecte strategy is helpful to obtain higher cordycepin production. At the same time, the production of PTN can also increase the economic benefits of this method.
By transferring cns-cns3 gene cluster encoding COR-PTN coupling biosynthesis found in C.militaris into yeast, we can realize the coupling synthesis of PTN and cordycepin, facilitate large-scale fermentation and solve the yield problem.Cns1-2 controlled the synthesis of cordycepin, while cns3 was related to the synthesis of PTN. By introducing only the HisG domain related to PTN synthesis in cns3 gene and constructing the cns1-cns2 fusion protein, we further simplified COR/PTN co-production system and increased the yield.
In order to produce cordycepin more cheaply and automatically in the factory, we constructed a delayed expression system in the engineering yeast, allowing the related enzymes that catalyze the synthesis of cordycepin to start expression at the appropriate bacterial density and PTN content. With the accumulation of PTN that is toxic to yeast cells, the cells will automatically crack at the completion stage of fermentation, releasing the products, which is conducive to the subsequent separation and purification.
In terms of fermentation facilities and technology, we can use the now very mature large-scale liquid fermentation method, characterized by low cost, relatively low technical requirements, high yield, high degree of automation, and no additional research and development costs.
2.Price Advantage
Based on the cost of large-scale fermentation in the market and the data of laboratory output, we predict that the cost of our production method is as low as 5,000 yuan per gram of cordycepin pure product, which has a huge advantage over 13,000 yuan per gram of pure product of chemical synthesis method and 10,000 yuan of pure product of biological synthesis method in the market.
3.Prospect
Through experiments, we can screen better medium formulation and fermentation conditions, further reduce the cost and increase the yield. At the same time, we can model and improve the delayed fermentation system to find the best time for the transformation of strain from number amplification to fermentation production. We can also conduct database analysis of linker between cns1a2 fusion proteins to find the most suitable linker type and length. Besides, we can cooperate with the factory to find the best process for extracting PTN and cordycepin from fermentation broth. We can build a multi-copy genome integration system so that the constructed plasmid can be integrated into the genome, and the multi-copy plasmid can be produced when the expression is needed. Also, we can provide standardized enzyme cutting sites to optimize the fitness of other ligations in the delayed expression system.
In a word, our project can improve on the existing basis and widen the gap with the traditional production mode in many aspects.
Development and Market Analysis
1.PEST
Politic:
Policies issued by the Chinese Government have promoted the development of healthcare products.Since 2015, healthcare products have been formally brought into the legal supervision in China. After that, a series of policies have beenissued to promote and standardize the development of healthcare product industry.
Policies issued by the Chinese Government.
Economy:
(1) The market capacity of healthcare products is huge
In recent years, people pay more and more attention to healthcare products, and the market scale of healthcare products continues to expand.The second global healthcare products market is the Chinese market, where the healthcare product industry is worth more than $40 billion.
(2) The enlarged health industry drives more demand
At present, the enlarged health industry in China is in the primary stage, having huge potential. It is estimated that the scale of the enlarged health industry is expected to exceed 9 trillion yuan by 2020, which promotes the development of the industry andbrings growth space for the healthcare product market.
Economy | (a) Health product market scale and forecast in China.Source: China Industrial Research Institute.(b) The enlarged industry scale and forecast in China.
Society:
Residents' awareness of self-health care is gradually increasing
The upgrading of medical services drives the health care and its expenditure is rising rapidly.Advanced medical equipment, improved medical environment and upgraded medical services have significantly improved the medical level. More and more residents are willing to spend money on daily health care.
Technology:
Synthetic biology, which is hailed as “God's perspective”, can break the natural law of time evolution and achieve spontaneous and stable development because of its own subversive, application market and the ability to continuously create new economic growth points.
2. 3C's Strategic Triangle Model
Customer classification
Based on the core technologies and products, the company will target pharmaceutical research and health care, with major customers being research institutions and corporates.With the continuous innovation and breakthrough of technology, we will also look for customers and markets in the personal consumption field in the future.
①For medical research: there are hospitals, research institutes, university laboratories and so on.
②For medical care: there are healthcare products manufacturers and beauty care companies.
Customer benefit
The benefitthat the project can bring to customers are as follows:
① For hospitals and research institutes, our project can help reduce their R&D costs, improve research efficiency and make constructions to their medical abilities.
②Forhealthcare products manufacturers and beauty care companies, our project can improve their profits, help to establish a positive image of the company and promote the trend of national anti-cancer.
Relationship between the service platform and the target customers
①The service platform provides communication platform for the target customers
②The target customers enhance the visibility of the company through the service platform
Business Model and Marketing
1.Business model
Based on the core technology of cordycepin biosynthesis, Cordsin mainly focuses on two primary target customers: the health product manufacturing enterprise that use cordycepin as the raw material, and the scientific research institution studying cordycepin, to make a profit by selling them cordycepin. At the same time, Cordsin also aims to upgrade the technology for manufacturing enterprises producing cordycepin health products, by selling them cordycepin mycelia that can be used to mass production. Through the technology improvement of cordycepin production, Cordsin will promote the environmental process of the entire health care product industry, and greatly increase the production of cordycepin, so as to meet the market demand.
2.Business system
We considered three model including Research and development mode, Production mode and Channel sales model. You can find them in our business plan.
3.Market strategy
Through Factor Analysis and Cluster Analysis, we divide the entire questionnaire into four parts.According to the results of Frequency Analysis, we intend to publicize our biosynthetic cordycepin combined with traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) via new media. Small profits but quick turnover are thought to be a better way to expand the market.Then we make a Correlation Analysis for exploring the traits of consumer groups further. It showed that middle-aged and aged people who prefer traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) are more likely to buy cordyceps militaris, while young people who know transgene are more willing to accept biosynthetic cordycepin. Multiple Regression shows that in terms of the degree of the influence, the degree of understanding of the transgene is more important than the degree of preference for traditional Chinese medicine. We are happy that public generally supports the biosynthetic cordycepin.
Competitive Risks and Countermeasures
PS: We also have a complete business plan.(View more)