With the aggravation of China's ageing population and lifestyle changes, the
prevalence of gout in our country has been steadily increasing. Currently, there are more than 10 million
gout patients in China, making it an undeniable public health concern. However, there is still a lack of
targeted gout drugs in the country. Most gout treatments are based on inhibiting uric acid synthesis or
promoting uric acid excretion, which can lead to side effects such as liver and kidney damage
(
Tmall Health
,
CNB Data and Sinocare
)
. Therefore, there is an urgent need to accelerate the development of gout
interventions to improve both efficacy and safety.
Our team, aims to dev
elop an better treatment of gout which will reduce uric acid effectively, pose
no hazard to all age groups with less negative side effects.
To promote
and test
our project
and products
scientifically
, we designed a questionnaire survey and conducted three expert interviews.
Our team is dedicated to developing G-01, an engineered probiotic, which is the flagship product of the Gout Project. G-01 consists of probiotics essential for creating oral liquid formulations with the specific bacterial solution, serving as a key raw material source for pharmaceutical companies in China.
In order to understand the public's awareness of gout and its probiotic
prevention
,
as well as
treatment methods,
we published an online questionnaire.
In this questionnaire, a total of 153 people filled out the questionnaire and
answered the following questions:
1.
Gender
F
igure 1
In the number of valid participants in this question, women have the highest
proportion, accounting for 62.75%, followed by men, accounting for 35.29%, and other genders have a
relatively small proportion, only 1.96%. This indicates that the majority of people filling out this
questionnaire are women.
2.
Age group
F
igure 2
According to the data table, among the 153 participants in this survey, the
age group between 31 and 50 years old has the highest proportion, accounting for 52.94%. Next are the
age groups under 18 years old and 18-30 years old, accounting for 17.65% and 11.76% respectively. The
age group aged 51 to 60 and over is relatively small, accounting for 8.5% and 9.15% respectively. Among
these 153 people, more than half are middle-aged, which happens to be the age group with high incidence of
gout, indicating the high effectiveness of this questionnaire.
3.
Do you understand the causes and mechanisms of gout?
F
igure 3
According to the data table, 65 people, accounting for 42.48%, participated in
this survey to understand the causes and mechanisms of gout; The number of people who do not understand
is 88, accounting for 57.52%.
It can be seen that among the surveyed population, the number of people who
understand the causes and mechanisms of gout is less than the number who do not, indicating that the
majority of people do not know how to prevent and treat gout.
4.
Have you ever experienced excessive uric acid during your physical
examination?
F
igure 4
Data shows 11.76% surveyed addressed high uric acid with prevention measures,
9.15% noted it but didn't act, 23.53% didn't consider it, and 55.56% never had high uric acid. In
conclusion, while most didn't experience high uric acid during exams, some did, prompting preventive
actions.
It's advised to raise awareness about high uric acid during exams and
promote preventive measures.
5.
Do you or any of your family or friends have gout patients?
F
igure 5
According to the data tab
le,
54.25% (11 individuals+72 family and friends) have gout, while 45.75% (70
individuals) are gout-free. Within family and friend relationships, 47.06% have gout, compared to only 7.19%
of individual respondents. In summary, over half of survey participants have gout or know family and friends
with gout, with a higher proportion among the latter group.
6.
In your understanding, can gout be prevented through some methods?
F
igure 6
According to the data table, a total of 153 people have effectively filled out
the multiple-choice question. Among them, 92.16% of respondents believe that gout can be prevented
through some methods, while only 7.84% of respondents believe that it cannot be prevented. Therefore,
most respondents believe that gout can be prevented through some methods, which is helpful for our
promotion.
7.
What types of prevention methods can you accept?
F
igure 7
According to the data table,
the most favored gout prevention methods are enhancing physical fitness
(85.62%) and reducing high-purine foods (84.97%). Preventing excessive fatigue is also popular (71.24%),
while using health products has lower acceptance (32.68%).
Enhancing fitness and dietary changes are preferred
, likely due to their simplicity and lifestyle adaptability.
Preventing overwork is also favored,
as it
reduces physical fatigue and strengthens immunity.
These findings are valuable for developing prevention strategies and
enhancing health awareness.
8.
Types of drugs you can accept
F
igure 8
The survey shows that pills are the most accepted drug type (59.48%), followed
by granules (53.59%) and beverages (48.37%). External applications and other drugs have lower acceptance at
43.14% and 20.26%, respectively.
In summary, pills, granules, and beverages are popular types of drugs, while
topical products and other types of drugs are relatively less accepted. These results can provide a certain
reference for product development and marketing in the pharmaceutical market.
9.Which of the following aspects do you pay more attention to when facing a
medication to prevent gout?
Based on the data table, the following conclusions can be drawn:
F
igure 9
In selecting gout prevention drugs, safety is paramount for participants
(94.77% of responses), indicating a strong emphasis on product safety and reliability. Brands also matter
significantly (50.98%), influencing consumer choices towards well-known options. Price plays a role
(45.75%), with consumers seeking cost-effective products. Suitability, focusing on taste, ranks lower
(42.48%), suggesting efficacy prevails. Other factors receive less attention (9.15%). In summary, consumers
prioritize safety and brand, followed by price and palatability when choosing gout prevention drugs, shaping
their purchasing decisions.
10.How much money are you willing to spend on preventing gout every month?
F
igure 10
From the data table, it can be seen that over half of the respondents (52.29%)
are willing to spend 0-100 yuan per month on preventing gout. In addition, 32.68% of respondents are willing
to spend 100-500 yuan per month, 9.15% of respondents are willing to spend 500-1000 yuan per month, and only
5.88% of respondents are willing to spend more than 1000 yuan per month. Overall, the majority of
respondents control the cost of preventing gout at a relatively low level.
11.
If there is a probiotic oral liquid that can effectively prevent gout, would
you recommend it to your family and friends at risk?
F
igure 11
According to the data table, a total of 153 people effectively filled out the
multiple-choice question, of which 88.89% said they would recommend a probiotic oral solution that can
effectively prevent gout to family and friends at risk, while 11.11% said they would not recommend it.
Therefore, it can be concluded that most people are willing to recommend a probiotic oral solution that can
effectively prevent gout to family and friends at risk.
In summary, the survey reveals a knowledge gap in gout causes and prevention,
but participants are eager to learn and act. Gout's prevalence in social circles highlights the need for
collective awareness.
There are some implications for our project and product:
Given limited gout knowledge, our project should offer educational resources
on prevention and treatment. Lifestyle-based methods are preferred, so we should include fitness and dietary
advice. For our product, safety and brand reputation matter most, guiding our marketing strategy. Most are
willing to spend moderately, so competitive pricing can expand our user base.
Street interviews have always been a great way to get the public's opinion
s
on something, and have always
been an integral part of education. We also added an important part of our integrated human practices, and
we interviewed 4 randomly selected guests.
First of all, we interviewed Ms. Li, whose gender and age did not fit the
high-risk group of gout, but when we asked her about her understanding of this disease, we found that she
had a deep understanding of this disease. It turned out that she had such a patient suffering from gout in
her family, so she had a good understanding of the causes of gout and how to prevent it. We found out from
this street interview that gout is really a very common disease, so it's really easy to get sick if you
don't prevent it in time. And when they heard we were promoting our probiotic products, they were also very
willing to learn about and buy our products.
F
igure 12
The second man we interviewed was a 40-year-old man, apparently of the right
age and gender to be at high risk for gout, but he was completely unaware of the seriousness of the disease.
According to him, he worked hard day and night, slept badly, his diet was very irregular, and alcohol was
very common in his life. In addition, he does not like sports very much, and his weight is much higher than
normal. As we can find from his daily life, he has a very high probability of suffering from gout,
regardless of his age and gender, his unhealthy diet, his lack of sports, and his serious lack of sleep. The
good news is that when we talk about the severity of gout,
h
e is also aware of how terrible the disease can be and is keen to learn about
our probiotic oral solution to prevent gout.
The third random interview
ee
we chose was our peers. We wanted to know how many people in our peers knew
about gout, but to our surprise, he also had a lot of understanding of gout. When we asked about ways to
prevent gout, he mentioned seafood, which is indeed a food that raises uric acid. And he also mentioned that
in order to prevent gout, he would often exercise, take his family with him, and help his family to prevent
gout. His behavior surprised us very much, because he was only 15 years old, and he was very reluctant when
we started to promote our probiotic products, because in his opinion, all drugs have bad effects on the
body. We immediately introduced that our probiotic oral liquid is based on probiotics, which will not act on
the liver but directly enter the intestine to help degrade uric acid. After our explanation, he was still
very optimistic about our product.
Figure 13
The last person we interviewed was a woman who was already suffering from
gout, and our understanding of gout became deeper and deeper through our
interation
with her. At first, we did
not know that she was a person who was already suffering from gout, so we first asked her if she knew or
knew anyone who was already suffering from gout, and she directly said that she was suffering from gout,
which shocked us. According to her, suffering from gout is very painful, the joint pain is unbearable to
ordinary people, she said that when the pain attacks, she will wake up in the middle of the night, and the
pain is similar to the big toe fire (intense burning sensation in the big toe joint), very painful. So we
urge everyone to prevent gout before it's too late to notice you have symptoms.
Through interviews with different groups of people, each group has a very
different understanding of gout, so our products need to focus on the promotion of men around 40 years old,
as this demographic appears particularly susceptible to gout but may lack
awareness of its risk,
so that they can pay attention to the harm of this disease and better
prevention of such diseases, so that fewer and fewer people in the society are suffering from this disease.
Dr. Sun Zhuang, an orthopedic surgeon, shared valuable insights with us.
Our team prepare
d
the interview questions which
can be divided into 3 main
parts
which are basic information,
the advantages and drawbacks of various treatments and expecatation of our
product.
For basic information,
it's important to note that
et
hanol, alcohol, as well as certain medication aspects (e.g., vitamin B2), have
an effect on uric acid metabolism. Lifestyle habits and diets do not add up to high uric acid and gout
becomes common.
What's more,
the expert t
old us
the
n
ormal
u
ric
a
cid
l
evels
and
spokes
the negative effect of both
having too high or too low uric acid level.
For an
alyz
ing
the pros and cons of each
treatment modality
,
it is obvious
that oral
liquid have plenty of comopetitive advantages
,
including
relatively lower side effects
and better effects or greater efficiency on preventing gout.
For the prediction of our product,the function of our oral liquid is only to
lower the uric acid concentration and prevent gout. But our product is not able to thoroughly treat gout.
To sum up,our target consumers should be people who have relatively high uric
acid level and do not have gout.
Finally,
the doctor also share
d
several suggestions about
preventing gout.
One is eating less hi
gh
-
purine foods
such as
animal viscera,
another is to add dairy substances into our daily diet.
The doctor also provided some suggestions for our product, which include
publishing articles in reputable academic journals and utilizing advertising campaigns. It is advisable to
present as much empirical evidence and clinical data as possible, combining scientific inquiry with
practical application to enhance the product's credibility.
F
igure 14 Online meeting with D
r
.Sun Zhuang
The second
expert
we interviewed is Dr.
Wang
,
who is
a
professional l
ecturer
in
Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine
.
Our team members prepare
d
the interiew quesations which
can be divided into 3 major aspects
: the
competitive advantages of out oral products,
the methods to improve m
arket
c
onversion
r
a
te of our products
,
and the effectiveness of this
type of medicine.
Firstly, the expert t
old
that th
ere have been no particular advances
in the probiotics medicine
, and there are still fewer products available for the preventive treatment of
gout. The mechanism of action of gout treatment drugs include: xanthine oxidase inhibitors that inhibit uric
acid production. It can effectively prevent and relieve gout.
Plus,
we explain
ed
the biological
principle
of our products in a great
detail and ask his idea about whether or not our biological technology has positive effects on treating gout
or reducing the extent of pain.
The speciaslist agre
ed
our suggestions.
He reckon
ed
that adding probiotocs to
formulate
medicine
is feasible. The use of
probiotics to session for gout has been studied by experts before, but in different ways. Overall,
probiotics are effective in controlling high uric acid levels in the body becasuse
they
can produce specific enzyem
s
to reduce the concentration
of uric acid a
nd can be a good session for gout pain.
Moving on to the competitive advantages of our products,
t
here are currently fewer gout session prevention products on the market.
Probiotics for gout prevention is a good attempt. It has some innovative and competitive advantages. First
of all there are not particularly many competing products, and can be relatively free pricing. Probiotics
can be very good to control the body's high level of uric acid.
To sum up,
the barriers to enter this industry is relatively small because of the less
competitors previously in the probiotics medicine
.
What'
s
more, another advantage is that p
robiotic products have no side effects compared to other products that prevent
gout. Probiotic products are also relatively suitable for all people. The audience group is wide and has a
good development prospect.
For the special points that we have to pay attention
to,
p
harmaceutical research and development has to target a specific group of
people, and needs to repeatedly evaluate the efficacy of the drug to ensure that it is safe and effective.
At the same time, after a drug has been researched and developed, it requires a large number of experiments,
including clinical trials, to ensure that it is effective and safe before it can be used. Different drugs
need to be used for different conditions, and some drugs may cause allergies or aggravate other conditions.
Medicial
products need to be suitable
for the majority of people. They are not highly effective, but can be effective in preventing or relieving
symptoms.
In conclusion,
the oral liquid
form is more suitable for us,
and this expert g
ave
us a specific
market positioning
which
define
s
the target consumers.
F
igure 15 Online meeting with P
rof. Wang Qinzhuo
W
e
c
ontacted another
nutrionist,
Li
llian
Wu,
who
is a registered Chinese dietitian
.
This interview mainly focused on the market analysis,
including
defining
our
target
consumers,
the advantages of our products,
the sales channels of both B-side and C-side products
,
and the
analysis of Chinese medicine market.
Figure 16 Online meeting with L
il
lian
Wu
First of all, we introduced our entire
business
plan to
the specialist in great details through market analysis,
the introduction of both B-side (industrial products) and C-side (oral liquid)
and the safety or ethic aspects. The expert gave our explanation a positive feedback. What's more, we
highly summarized the other two interviews with Sun Zhuang and Wang Qingzhuo. We originally wanted to market
our product as a gout prevention supplement. But the other two experts suggested that acting as a medicine
would be more suitable for us. This is because the strict qualification requirement published by China
healthcare center increase the barriers to enter the market. So that we changed our minds to make medicines
instead of supplements
(
healthcare products).
Moving on to how to define our target consumers, Mrs. Wu argued that we should
make decisions based on the database. For instance, there was already a authoritative research which show
that the 35 years to 65 years this age group and the resident coastal cities are more likely to have gout.
So that we should pay more attention to this kind of people. Thus, depending on the age of our target
consumers, we need to design trend-setting packaging.
We briefly describe the advantages of our products
. T
he probiotic used by our team is E. coli DH5 α, which is good for digestion;
the second point is that Nissle 1917 can accept the acidic environment of stomach. On the other hand, our
product will not affect the kidney and liver, so that the side effect could be ignored. In addition, innate
enzymes are less likely to cause allergic reactions. So that these benefits may have positive impact on
sales.
For economics analysis, as there were a large amount of gout patients with
approximately 14.66 million people), plus, there are no monopolies in the gout preventing market.Thus,the
commercial competition is relatively small.
The experts have offered several valuable recommendations for our product:
Firstly, she stressed the importance of formula design and suggest educating
and promoting our product specifically to different age groups. By doing so, we can meet a wider range of
consumer needs and provide more options.
Secondly, she advised us to control the pricing of our oral liquid products,
keeping them within the range of 138-200 RMB. This pricing strategy will prevent overpricing and ensure that
our products remain competitive in the market. Lastly, she highlighted the need to improve our marketing
strategy. She suggested that we conduct more in-depth market research and enhance our promotional efforts to
raise product awareness and recognition.
In summary, these recommendations revolve around the themes of tailored
formula design, competitive pricing, product diversification, and enhanced marketing strategies.
Implementing these suggestions will help us better meet market demands, maintain competitiveness, and
bolster brand recognition.
The questionnaire results highlight the importance of raising awareness about
gout prevention and treatment. Respondents prioritize product safety and brand reputation while emphasizing
the need for reasonable pricing.
In our interviews with three experts, we gained valuable insights into the
scientific aspects of gout. Their input emphasized the significance of product safety and scientific
validity. Additionally, we discussed the potential adjustment of our product's form to an oral liquid,
aligning with consumer preferences. The experts also stressed the importance of personalized solutions to
cater to different age groups.
Our product caters to two main groups: the B2B segment primarily targeting pharmaceutical companies and the
B2C segment aimed at four key groups susceptible to this condition: obese individuals, men over 40, beer and
seafood enthusiasts, and those with a family history of genetic diseases.
The C-side usage involves preventing and managing gout with innovative probiotic oral solutions, addressing
the condition's symptoms. On the B-side, our team focuses on developing G-01, an engineered probiotic for
oral liquid formulations to tackle gout.
For the B2B segment, we'll use offline science promotion ads, establish a strong online presence on
platforms like Twitter, Little Red Book, and Instagram, and engage in below-the-line (BTL) marketing with
pamphlet distribution.For the B2C segment, we'll mainly use direct sales, pharmacies, e-commerce, and
promote through elevator displays in public areas and new media advertising.
Tmall Health, CNB Data,
&
Sinocare. (2021).
"[2021 White Paper on High Uric Acid and Gout Trends in China]"
https://pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H3_AP202104231487186153_1.pdf?1619175552000.pdf