Entrepreneurship expert interview

When we first conceived our business plan, we had a chance to interview Dr. Liu Yexing , a PhD in Life Sciences from Tsinghua University, who is the Executive Director at Shenzhen Angel Fund.

The interview enhanced our commercialization perspective. We learned about inadequacies in our products and plans, like clarifying production significance and market direction. Dr. Liu advised entering the pet industry, citing good prospects despite competition. The low barriers enable seizing market share with our new invention. We also learned about strategically expanding from pets to clinical medicine.

Dr. Liu recommended applying antimicrobial peptides in pet medicine but considering our positioning as B2B or B2C. He explained B2B involves fewer, larger customers, lower margins and weaker bargaining power, while B2C needs stronger sales abilities and capital.

Importantly, Dr. Liu questioned the significance of our broad-spectrum peptide versus individual gram-positive and negative peptides. Further analysis will clarify our advantages, guiding future promotion.

Overall, this provided invaluable commercialization insights and revealed key issues to address. Our main gain was clarifying the pet medicine market potential.

Figure 1. Interview with Dr. Liu

Business plan

1. Overview

1.1 Executive Summary

Rising antibiotic overuse has exacerbated the global issue of bacterial resistance across pharmaceutical, livestock and pet industries. Fortunately, antimicrobial peptides offer a promising solution.

Upon investigation, we found current antimicrobial peptides often target only Gram-positive or Gram-negative bacteria, leaving a gap for one effective against both.

Having acquired this core technology, we chose to focus first on the pet pharmaceutical market before expanding to address more formidable human medicine challenges. The lower technological barriers in pets enable establishing initial market presence.

Moreover, combating antimicrobial resistance in pets could also contribute to alleviating human issues, since animal superbugs may spread to humans.

This business plan comprises analyses of the antimicrobial peptide market, pet-specific market, competitor landscape, go-to-market strategy, and financials. Our comprehensive solutions will position us advantageously to penetrate the untapped pet market potential and ultimately strive to tackle antimicrobial resistance more broadly.

1.2 Company Description

Company Basic Information:

Company Name: Bacbusters

Specialization: Pet Healthcare

Company Address: Foshan, Guangdong, China

Logo:

Figure 2

Year of Establishment: 2023

Registered Capital: 1,000,000 RMB

Core Technology: Novel Antimicrobial Peptides

Business Scope:

Our company has a complete industry chain, handling production to sales internally. This approach significantly reduces costs and eliminates intermediaries.

Products:

In the initial phase, our company offers three main products: eye drops for treating pet eye infections, oral medications for treating bacterial infections in pets' stomachs, and ointments for surface wounds.

Sales Channels and Target Audience:

We primarily have two sales channels: selling to pet hospitals (B2B) and directly to pet owners. For the latter, our primary target audience is young pet owners. According to our initial market research, young people tend to be more receptive to new products and are willing to spend on their pets. Additionally, our product design aligns with young people's aesthetic preferences.

Company's Future Development Direction:

We will start from China's pet market and gradually grow into a global enterprise. Once the antimicrobial peptide technology matures, we plan to enter the pharmaceutical industry, further expanding our influence.

2.Development Plan

Stage Name	Time Period		Tasks	Resources		Skills		Risks
Preparation Stage	Jan 2024 - Feb 2024		Team formation, financing	Founders, Core Team, Investors		Entrepreneurship, Negotiation		Difficulties in talent recruitment, Funding
Startup Stage	Mar 2024 - Aug 2024		Project initiation, factory construction	Funds, land, construction team, Equipment		Innovation and Strategic Planning, Engineering		Insufficient Funding, Project Delays, Cost Overruns
Production & Promotion	Sep 2024 - Dec 2024		Production trial, marketing launch	Production Setup, Marketing Team		Production Operations, Marketing		Low Production Efficiency, Unstable Product Quality
Sustained Development	Jan 2025 - Dec 2025		User feedback, R&D, customer service	Customer Support, R&D, Expansion Team		Feedback Collection, Market Strategy		Customer Dissatisfaction, Ineffective Product Improvement, Limited Market Share
Estimated Break-Even	2026		Achieve break-even	Consolidated Resources		Combined Skills		Business Risks, Market Volatility
Global Expansion and Human Medicine Industry Development Stage		From 2026	International expansion, venturing into human medicine industry		Global Operations, R&D Team		Cross-Cultural, Market Expansion		Market Adaptation

3. Market Analysis

3.1 Market size research

3.1.1 The challenge in the Antibiotics market

In recent years, due to the abuse of antibiotics, the resistance of bacteria has become stronger and stronger, and "super bacteria" has gradually entered our field of vision. Global antibiotic use has increased by about 65% over the past 15 years, according to CDDEP's Klein report. However, in 2019, global antimicrobial resistance killed between 1.27 million people. Overall, the demand for and use of antibiotics is increasing, but mortality from antibiotic misuse continues to rise. In this context, pioneering new antibiotics becomes crucial.

3.1.2 The solution for "resistant"--Antimicrobial peptides

Currently, the best way to address this situation is to reduce bacterial resistance, that is, to create new types of antibiotics. However, the uncertainty and high production costs of new antibiotics are major challenges to this process. As a substitute to antibiotics, antimicrobial peptides has broad spectrum and is not prone to developing bacterial resistance. Hence, antimicrobial peptide market have good prospects and trends in the future.

Existing solutions to this problem already exist - antimicrobial peptides, which can be applied in various fields such as agriculture and medicine, are currently playing a vital role. Antimicrobial peptides have huge advantages over antibiotics, according to our interviews with experts:

Tolerance

Whether or not have the taboos in capatibility

The optimal time for using the medicine

Cost

Production time

Is there any harm to other bacteria except the target bacteria?

Antimicrobial peptides

Any

time

high

long

Antibiotics

√

Only the first period

relatively low

short

√

3.1.3 Antimicrobial peptide's Market size

The global antimicrobial peptide market is still small, but the growth potential is huge. It is expected that the market size will grow rapidly in the next 5 years, and the compound annual growth rate can reach more than 10%. As the largest consumer market, China is also showing rapid growth. According to the following picture, the different types of antimicrobial's market size are steady upward trend. According to Grand View Research, the global antimicrobial peptide market size was $1.27 billion in 2018. The global antimicrobial peptide market is expected to reach $3.81 billion by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 14.3%. By type

Figure3

F igure 4

3.1.4 Market segmentation research

l Pet's field:

Figure 5

l Pet market size

Due to the large base of the Chinese itself, the population has reached 1.4 billion by 2022, and according to the statistics of the 2022 Chinese census, China's fertility rate has fallen to 1.09, so the market demand is huge. In the overall pet market, in China's pet medicine market, pet medicine is monopolized by other countries with high value, small market scale and low maturity; The drug development cycle is long (5 years), the investment is large, and in the case of international competition, the limited market cannot support the development of Chinese pharmaceutical companies; With the continuous growth of market scale, Chinese pharmaceutical companies are gradually ushering in opportunities. According to the data, due to 2023 China's pet market achieves 4456 million yuan and eexpect to grow continuely.

Figure 6

Due to this bar chart, most of pet market is pet medicine.Thus pet medicine would be a big market and will develope constantly.

3.1.5 Conclusion

Because of the huge population in China, pet medical care has a large demand for antimicrobial peptides, but there is still a large gap in the current market, so this is a very potential market. And compared with human medicine, its market barriers are relatively low, which also gives us more room to play.

4 . Market competetion research

4.1 Barriers to entry

The antimicrobial peptide became a relatively large industry because with the development of technology, the resistance of bacteria gradually turns into a serious problem to the pharmaceutics and biology industry. Since the antimicrobial peptide was discovered, more and more manufacturers invested into this industry—however, on the other hand, AMP industry has huge barrier to entry in several aspects.

4.1.1 FUNDS

Drug types	Cost per gram
AMPs(synthesized)	200-500$
AMPs(fermentation produced)	100$
antibiotics	10-40$

Fund is actually a large barrier for AMP product to enter the market. Due to the research, AMP itself needs a large amount of money to be used. The average price of chemically synthesized antimicrobial peptides is about $200-$500 per gram, and the price of fermentation to produce antimicrobial peptides is also around $100 per gram. However, the average price of traditional antibiotics is generally $10-40 per gram. An obvious comparison has been made due to the large difference in price, and this may be a main reason why most manufacturers are not willing to put money here. Antibiotics is cheaper to produce, and it doesn’t require extra fund to research further technology, because antibiotic is already a mature technology to be used.

4.1.2 TECHNOLOGY:

Drug Types	half-life period(hrs)
AMPs average	2-10hours
AMPs LL-37	2-4hours
antibiotics	several hours to a few days

Every new technology definitely faces the issue on technology. For AMP, there are plenty of problems for scientists to solve. According to the interview to a famous doctor from Toronto University, Xing ZhiHao, we know that although AMP has already been researched by many scientific labs, it still lacks stability. In a small part of the research, its activity was proved to work, but it was not allowed to be used in clinical yet. The experiments related to biological stuff abstains mistakes on clinical or to use new technologies on clinical experiments, due to its consequence is usually serious, and it causes ethical problems. Another point is AMPs’ half-life is too short, much shorter than antibiotics’, which means it has easily degradable properties. According to the research, most of the half-life time for AMP is 2-10hours in the serum. This means, perhaps before the AMP exerts its ability, it will be degraded. An AMP, LL-37, has a half-life of only 2-4 hours in the skin. However, for most of the antibiotics, they have a half-life from several hours to a few days, which is much longer than AMPs’. The last issue on technology is, many AMPs owns poison currently. Compare to other broad-spectrum stuffs, AMP has a low poison in broad-spectrum products, however the low poison should also be solved by scientists before it is used in clinical stage. Unfortunately, there is no any clear solution for this issue yet.

1） Economy scale: Overall, the AMP industry has a relative advantage on economy scale, because it has a great future. As the problem on bacteria resistance became more and more serious, manufacturers from worldwide notice AMP as the replacement solution. It shows a trend of increasing its scale in the following year, and in 2050 will reach 13.97 billion USD (predicted).

Figure 7

However, the AMP lacks large scale production stage because it has various problem on technology, and it has a relative high cost for production. Industrial development is still in its infancy, key technologies and industrialized production need to be breakthroughs, and there is uncertainty in market growth. Enhancing the application of antimicrobial peptides in the fields of medicine and daily chemicals also requires policy support and continuous technological innovation.

2） POLICIES: AMP actually does not have so many barriers on politics, because most of the countries are already aware about the significance of AMP. Here is an example of Chinese supports on AMP industry.

Regarding the antimicrobial peptide industry, the Chinese government's current clear support policies include:

No.	Policies
1.	One of the biotechnology fields supported by the state. As an important research direction of innovative antibiotics, antimicrobial peptides have been included in the national key biotechnology development plan of the "13th Five-Year Plan".
2.	Set up a special fund to support the research and development of antimicrobial peptides. For example, the National Natural Science Foundation of China has set up a key project support fund for the creation and efficacy evaluation of antimicrobial peptides.
3.	Antimicrobial peptide drugs are included in the scope of innovative drug support. Eligible new antimicrobial peptide drugs can apply for national special fund support for innovative drug research and development.
4.	Establish a standard system for antimicrobial peptides. The State Medical Products Administration actively promotes the formulation of quality standards for antimicrobial peptide drugs.
5.	Encourage industry-university-research cooperation in antimicrobial peptides. Establish a public technical service platform for antimicrobial peptides and gather industrial resources.
6.	Strengthen the construction of antimicrobial peptide talent team. Introduce and cultivate high-end antimicrobial peptide R&D talents through various programs.
7.	Tax incentives for antimicrobial peptide enterprises. Eligible antimicrobial peptide enterprises can enjoy preferential tax policies for high-tech enterprises.
8.	Actively strive for international cooperation on antimicrobial peptides. Carry out research and development cooperation with the United States and the European Union on antimicrobial peptides.

In general, the national level has given strong promotion and support to the development of the antimicrobial peptide industry. However, it is still necessary to increase policy support to promote the transformation and application of antimicrobial peptides. The international also supports this industry a lot.

4.2 PESTEL Analysis

4.2.1 Politics

In terms of policy, government agencies have given support in many ways. As an important research direction of innovative antibiotics, antimicrobial peptides have been listed as the national key biotechnology development plan of the "13th Five-Year Plan". According to the Drug Administration Law of the People's Republic of China, the government provides short-term approval and priority approval opportunities for new synthetic drugs. This support saves time-to-market for new antibiotics and brings them to clinical use sooner. According to policies such as the Technical Guidelines for the Evaluation of Antimicrobial Efficacy Experiments for Topical Use for Pets and the Regulations on the Administration of Veterinary Drugs, the state vigorously supports the promotion and marketing of pet drugs, which also includes the establishment of key project support funds and the strengthening of talent training plans.

All in all, government agencies have great expectations for the research of new antibiotics, and also give many innovative companies financial and policy support, so the antibiotic market is very potential.

4.2.2. Economics

As key development and support objects in China, and the state has set up a number of project base box support and human culture plans, and it is expected that the world market size of antimicrobial peptides can reach 7.85 billion US dollars in 2029. The global antimicrobial peptide market is still small, but has great potential, and the market size is expected to grow rapidly in the next 5 years, with a compound annual growth rate of more than 10%. As the largest consumer market, China is also known as a faster growth trend.

According to current statistics, the scale of China's urban pet consumption market in 2021 will be close to 2,500 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 20.6%, and the scale of China's pet medical market in 2020 will exceed 50 billion yuan, an increase of 38.5% over 2019. Due to the introduction of new concepts and the decline in fertility rate, the demand for pets in China has greatly increased, and its market will continue to expand. At present, the pet medical industry is developing rapidly at a rate of 30%-50% per year, according to the "China Happy Life Survey", 11.58% of China's 18 to 35-year-old people are pet service consumption, of which in the pet consumer market, the pet medical industry accounts for 23% of the entire industry.

The improvement of people's living standards and the rapid development of the economy have also provided great support for the booming pet consumer market. According to statistics, the per capita disposable income of Chinese in 2022 will be 3.69w per year, and the continuous expansion of the middle class has helped the pet consumer market.

Figure 8

4.2.3 Society

At present, the demand for pet drugs in the Chinese market is increasing. Among them, according to the "2021 China Pet Industry White Paper", at the end of 2021, the number of pet owners in China's urban pets reached 68.44 million, from 2018 to 2021, the number of pets in China increased from 56.48 million to 68.44 million, from 2016 to 2021, the number of pets in China increased from 130 million to 200 million, and it is expected that in 2026, the demand for urban pets in China will reach 220 million.

In addition, factors such as population, aging population, single population, rising living standards and declining marriage rate will affect the market size of the pet industry. Among them, in 2023, China has more than 140 million people, of which the elderly population aged 60 and above will reach 280 million, accounting for 19.8% of the total population, and it is expected that after 2035, the elderly population aged 60 and above will exceed 400 million. The rapid aging of the population has also brought about the rapid development of the pet industry, and many lonely elderly people will choose to buy pets to accompany themselves due to the lack of family companionship for many years, which has also brought about a surge in demand in the pet industry.

At the same time, in 2023, China's single population (default adults) will exceed 230 million, accounting for about 20.7% of the total population, while the marriage rate in China in 2023 will be only 5.22%, and only 5.445 million couples will get married. The large number of single people and the decline in marriage rate provide great prospects for the future development of the pet industry. The single population often chooses pets as companions in life, of which 58.4% of single people in China have pets in 2021, while the proportion of non-single groups owning pets is 26.3%, so the huge single group is the largest potential user in the pet industry.

In addition, with the continuous development of the domestic economy, people's living standards are also constantly improving, according to the survey, China's per capita disposable income in 2022 is about 36,900 yuan, of which according to the "2023 China Good Life Survey", 11.58% of the group of 18-35 years old are willing to spend money on pets, and according to Crowley survey data, 48% of the population spends 200 to 500 yuan per month for pets, 25% The average monthly cost is 500 to 1,000 yuan.

According to the above data, the pet industry is in a stage of rapid development in today's social environment, the market scale of the pet industry is growing day by day, and the potential customer group is also very large.

Figure 9

Figure 10

4.2.4 Technology

At present, there are several ways to obtain Cathelicidin:

(1) To directly isolate and purify bioactive Cathelicidin from organisms, and then study their structures and functions. In recent years, researchers have made good progress in different animals. Active Cathelicidin have been isolated and purified not only from common animals such as pigs and cattle, but also from giant salamander, Hermetia illucens and other organisms. However, this method is cumbersome, and the content of Cathelicidin obtained is generally low, which is not suitable for large-scale production and only suitable for technical development.

(2) Cathelicidin is artificially synthesized. According to the known gene sequence of Cathelicidin, Cathelicidin is chemically synthesized. However, this method is costly and expensive, making it unsuitable for widespread application.

(3) Enzymatic hydrolysis is mainly to purify the antibacterial part of the antibacterial protein cut by a specific protease, and then obtain Cathelicidin. Fish scale Cathelicidin is obtained by this method. Esmaeilpour et al also separated and purified the active Cathelicidin from goat Whey protein by this method. The Cathelicidin obtained by this method has high activity, but the purification is more troublesome, the yield is low, and the cost is also high.

(4) At present, the method of producing Cathelicidin with Escherichia coli expression system has been very mature, and has been widely used. It is an effective way of large-scale production of Cathelicidin. However, there are also some difficulties in this method.

1) The E. coli expression system does not have the ability to translate or modify proteins in the later stage like Eukaryote, which leads to excessive accumulation of intermediates and easy formation of Inclusion bodies structure.

2) It is easy to produce endotoxin, which will lead to the "suicide phenomenon" of Cathelicidin to the host in the late expression process, that is, to kill its own host bacteria. 3) Selection of expression vectors. Different types of expression vectors will also have different effects on the production of antimicrobial peptides. At present, there are three common functional expression vectors: non fusion, fusion and secretory expression vectors. The main feature of non fusion expression vector is that the obtained Cathelicidin has high similarity with natural Cathelicidin, such as pPL Lamda; Fusion expression vectors can simplify purification steps, such as the pGEX series; The main advantage of secretory expression vector is to prevent the secreted Cathelicidin from being degraded by the protease in the host bacteria, such as pEZZ18.

4) Cultivation conditions. The culture conditions will also affect the production of Cathelicidin by Escherichia coli. The ideal culture conditions for the Escherichia coli expression system are appropriate trace elements such as Mg2+, Ca2+, K+and NH4+, as well as sufficient energy.

4.2.5 Law:

In the context of the "ban on antibiotics" of feed, various new antibiotic alternatives have sprung up and have been put on the market. The Ministry of Agriculture's "Reply to Recommendation No. 6464 of the Fourth Session of the 12th National People's Congress" encourages and supports the research and development of new products such as antimicrobial peptides, timely includes safe and effective products into the permitted scope of use, and encourages the promotion of use; The National Development and Reform Commission's "Guiding Catalogue of Key Products and Services of Strategic Emerging Industries" lists antimicrobial peptides as key products in the biological feed sector.

Government agencies have given great support to new antibiotics, but due to the uncertainty of antimicrobial peptides, government agencies have strengthened the control of adding antimicrobial peptides to pet food. According to the data, some merchants have reduced the use of antimicrobial peptides in feed by 10%. But in general, the government provides great legal support.

4.2.6 Environment

Antibacterial peptide has no big impact on the ecological environment.

4.3 Competitor Analysis

Overall:After we decided to make pet antimicrobial peptides, we began to analyze our potential competitors. These three companies are making products related to pet drugs, they are Jingba Biology, Cat Research Institute and will rote. All three companies have their own pet antimicrobial peptides. We have checked the relevant information of these three companies and studied their products.

Will rote Willrote focuses on the research of pet nutrition and health care. According to the physiological and growth characteristics of dogs and cats, it develops a series of nutritional conditioning products, which is conducive to the healthy growth and development of dogs and pets, and develops functional products to assist the health recovery of sick dogs, cats and pets.

Jingba Biology: Provide high-end pet medicine health care products and functional food Beijing Jingba Biotechnology Development and Research Co., Its business scope includes: technology development, technology transfer, technical consultation and technical service; retail qualified products.

Cat Research Institute can design a unique set of online and offline flow self-circulation system: online sales of cat supplies, pet food and snacks, cat disease medicine, etc., which expands the service radius of the store, and also sells service packages for offline experience to attract stores. While offline customers go to the store and use store drainage to the community, the community provides basic consultation, science learning and synchronous mall activities, which can not only feed online, but also improve customer stickiness.

4.4 Target customer and position

Our products are pet agents, and our company intends to sell both to B and to C. So our target customers are roughly divided into two categories: pet owners and pet medical institutions, companies. (Our company's products are intended to be popularized in China before going global)

In today's society, more and more people choose to buy one or more pets for companionship. Therefore, our target customer base is becoming larger and larger, whether it is the student population in school, the young people who work, the married people, the retired people, and people of all ages have the possibility of having a pet.

l B2C: Among them, we mainly focus on marketing to young people. According to China's 2022 pet owner age distribution map, the number of pet owners aged 18 to 25 is as high as 31% of the total number of pet owners, and the number of pet owners between 26 and 30 years old is as high as 26% of the total number of pet owners. At the same time, the number of pet owners aged 23 to 38 worldwide has reached 31% of all pet owners. Therefore, we also use more elements that are popular with young people in the design of product packaging.

l B2B: At the same time, we will supply semi-finished products to pet rescue centers........

Figure 14

Reasons for market positioning: By comparing our main competitors Cat

Research Institute Pet Pharmacy, Jingba Biology and Willot, and analyzing

them from two dimensions of product diversification and target population.

Finally, the conclusion is that the current market is relatively vacant

for both high-end people and companies with diverse products, so our

company can position ourselves as a company with companies targeted at

high-end people and extremely diverse products. Our company's products

must be extremely diverse in the future. At present, our company has three

products, namely, eye drops, ointment and stomach medicine. From a high-

end point of view, our products cover the new inventions of antimicrobial

peptides, which have more powerful functions than other antimicrobial

peptides and can be more convenient to use. On the other hand, our

manufacturing scale is also small, so our cost will be higher, which makes

us have to set higher prices and target the high-end crowd.

Comparing the main AMP in the market

Antimicrobial Peptide	Target Infections and Applications	Advantages	Disadvantages	Potential Market Positioning
Polymyxin B	Gram-negative bacterial infections (e.g., pneumonia, bloodstream infections)	Broad-spectrum antimicrobial activity	Neurotoxicity and nephrotoxicity, high producing cost	First-line treatment for Gram-negative infections
LL-37	Potential for topical skincare and oral care products (quite narrow spectrum)	Naturally sourced, low toxicity	Lower stability, less potent than Polymyxin B, high producing cost,	Safe antimicrobial for skincare and oral care
Iseganan	Potential new generation broad-spectrum antimicrobial	Fully synthetic, broad antimicrobial spectrum	Limited pharmacokinetic data, high producing cost	Promising new drug candidate with clinical potential
Feglymycin	Few bacterial infections (oral and topical)	Broad antimicrobial spectrum, low cost	Potential hepatotoxicity and nephrotoxicity	Established antimicrobial with cost advantage

Figure 15

Each product has its own positioning and advantages. Polymyxin B focuses on its efficacy against Gram-negative infections, LL-37 can be developed into safe skincare products, Iseganan represents the hope for future antimicrobial peptides as a new drug candidate, and Feglymycin can serve as a commonly used antibiotic. However, there is still a blank in the market, an AMP with low cost and broad-spectrum. This is an opportunity for our company and our products can follow these two principles.

4.5 SWOT analysis

The main disadvantages of AMP in the market includes:

1. Limited spectrum of activity - Most of them target only Gram-positive bacteria and a few Gram-negative bacteria, unable to cover all bacteria.

2. Poor stability - Due to their proteinaceous nature, these antimicrobial peptides are prone to degradation by protease, leading to poor stability.

3. High production costs - Production via microbial fermentation or chemical synthesis can be costly.

4. Limited scope of use - They are mostly used for surface disinfection, and caution is required for internal use.

According to these disadvantages, our product might have the following opportunities.

1. Develop Gram-negative antimicrobial peptides with a broader spectrum of antimicrobial activity.

2. Utilize drug delivery systems to improve the stability of antimicrobial peptides.

3. Use genetically engineered bacterial strains to lower the production costs of antimicrobial peptides.

4. Explore new applications of antimicrobial peptides, such as food preservation.

SWOT

Strengths

Weakness

Opportunities

Threats

Product offering

-Compared to other antimicrobial peptide products in the market, it has a broader spectrum of bactericidal activity. Therefore:

1,It eliminates the need for testing, avoiding prolonged exposure to harm for pets.

2,Even ordinary pet owners can address bacterial infections in their pets as our product's antimicrobial success rate is higher than products targeting specific bacteria.

-Compared to antibiotic drugs, it is less likely to develop resistance. Therefore:

1, It provides more effective treatment for pets.

2,It helps prevent the emergence of super bacteria that could pose a threat to humans.

The final product may have a relatively high price due to the complex production process. Additionally, as a startup company, we currently lack economies of scale, which results in higher production costs.

Existing antimicrobial peptides in the market are often limited to targeting only one type of bacteria. Even if they can target both Gram-negative and Gram-positive bacteria simultaneously, they are not as broad-spectrum as our product.

Furthermore, currently, when pets fall ill, owners usually prefer taking them to a pet hospital, where the pets need to undergo a diagnosis before treatment.

There might be some potential side effects, which require more experiments to be proven.

Brand/Marketing

（For B2C）

When we are selling our products to customers, we will be focusing on young pet owners because surveys have shown that young people are more receptive to new things. Therefore, our primary promotional channels will be social media platforms with a significant presence of young users, and our product's design will cater to the aesthetics of young people.

However, this approach might result in losing potential customers from the older age groups.

Currently, there is no specific product series targeting young pet owners, and we can fill this gap in the market.

we must be cautious as our sales could be significantly affected if the tastes and preferences of young people change.

Staff

Our team is composed of young individuals, which may give us an advantage in understanding our customers better. Additionally, we are passionate about the future.

However, we lack experience in the industry and are driven primarily by enthusiasm.

We can consider hiring experienced industry veterans who have been in the field for many years.

Due to the lack of experience, there might be issues in market positioning, decision-making, and other aspects, leading to eventual closure.

Finance

After making adjustments to the materials used and production methods, and achieving economies of scale, our costs will decrease, and consequently, the selling price will also be reduced.m

We initially face high startup costs and hidden costs.

Once we lower the selling price to the level of regular products without antimicrobial peptides, we will gain a significant competitive advantage over them.

Improper adjustments could also pose risks, such as increased toxicity.

Market

Based on the data gathered from the survey and the predictions made by experts, the pet healthcare industry is expected to continue growing and expanding in the future.

There is a possibility that larger companies will enter this booming industry, which could squeeze the survival space for small enterprises like ours.

We can take advantage of the booming pet industry to achieve significant growth.

The entry of big companies might make it difficult for us to survive.

5. Market mix strategy

5.1 Product

Bacbuster Antimicrobial peptide have the following product format and features.

Attribute	Application site	Feature	Estimate Price (market price）
eye drops	eyes	Conjunctivitis, keratitis, blepharitis, lacrimal adenitis, etc. caused by gram-negative bacteria)	3￥ /ml
ointment	pet surface	Nocardia, Staphylococcus intermediate, Staphylococcus albicans, Staphylococcus aureus, Staphylococcus epidermidis and Corynebacterium microcorynei, etc	30￥ /20g
oral agent	inteastines and stomatch	Intestinal infections, gastrointestinal inflammation, dysentery diarrhea, loose vomiting	78￥ //20g

Figure 16 Figure 17

（Antimicrobial peptide eye drops） （Antimicrobial peptide ointment）

Figure 18

（Antimicrobial peptide oral agent）

5.2 Place & Promotion

(1) Place

While discussing the sales channels of our products, it can be generally divided into two categories. The first case is to directly sell our products to users （B2C） , that is, the people who own pets. The channels sold to them can be sold directly through offline retail stores or on different network platforms. The second situation is to sell our products to third-party enterprises such as pet hospitals or pet insurance companies, etc. Our products can play a role when pets need medical treatment. Such sales methods are also diverse. For example, they can be bundled with the products of insurance companies, and drive the sales volume of our products through the sales volume of insurance companies. Diversified sales channels can increase our sales volume, so that our products have a richer way to sell.

(2)Promotion

To increase our product's appeal to our target customers（ pet hospitals and directly pet owners ） , we have devised an integrated marketing approach that combines above-the-line (ATL) and below-the-line (BTL) tactics. Due to we have two main customers, pet hospitals and pet owners, our promotion strategies are also divided into to parts. By implementing this comprehensive strategy, we aim to bolster brand awareness and engagement among our desired audience.

Figure 19

To pet hospitals（ B2B ）

To promote our products for pets to veterinary hospitals, our company can use the following methods:

BTL

1. Demonstrations: Organize training sessions and product demonstrations targeted at veterinarians and healthcare staff. Allowing them to experience the product's efficacy firsthand can foster trust and increase the likelihood of recommending the product.

2. Sample Distribution: Offer free product samples to veterinary hospitals, enabling them to test and use the drug in real clinical cases. This trial can help them understand the product's effectiveness and encourage adoption. This will help to establish partnerships.

3. Participate in Industry Events: Attend pet healthcare industry exhibitions and conferences to showcase your product and establish connections with potential customers. These events provide valuable insights into market demands and competitors.

ATL:

4. Email Marketing: Collect email addresses from veterinary hospitals and regularly send them emails for product promotion, offering special deals, or providing updates about the product.

5. Professional Website: Create a professional and user-friendly website that provides detailed information about your product, including its features, uses, advantages, clinical trial data, and more. Ensure the website design is sleek and visually appealing, while offering easy contact options such as email or online chat support.

6. Special website: Place targeted advertisements on pet industry-specific communication websites, ensuring that the ad content aligns with the interests and needs of the platform's audience. For example, highlight the efficacy of your product in treating common pet illnesses or its advantages over traditional antibiotics. e.g. China Pet eb (http://www.poeoo.com)

7. Online Store or Ordering Platform: If possible, consider offering an online store or ordering platform for veterinary hospitals. This way, they can conveniently purchase the product and access real-time information on stock availability and pricing.

Other strategies:

Giving them a price lower than normal retail price. This will allows them to create a wider profit margin, so they might be more willing to build a partnership with our company.

To pets owners（ B2C ）

In some cases, the pet owners might not be willing to go to the pet hospital or clinic if their pet is sick. Instead, they might directly buy the products through online shopping applications. Therefore, we also need to consider how we are going to promote our products to the pet owners.

BTL:

1. Community Engagement: Participate in pet community events or volunteer activities, engage in face-to-face interactions with pet owners, and promote the antimicrobial peptide drug while providing professional advice.

2. Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Encourage satisfied customers to share their experiences using the antimicrobial peptide drug. Positive reviews from satisfied customers play a crucial role in building trust among other pet owners.

3. Sample Distribution: Offer free product samples or trial packs at pet stores or pet clinics, allowing pet owners to experience the drug's effectiveness and increasing their willingness to adopt it.

ATL

4. Find Suitable Celebrity Endorsers: Choose celebrities who have a positive public image, a genuine love for pets, and a significant following on social media. Ensure their values align with our product. For example, we can invite the famous Chinese actor”Hu Ge”, who is well known as a cat lover, as our brand ambassador.

5. Social Media Promotion: Establish professional accounts on relevant social media platforms and share content, demo videos, and user testimonials related to the product. Engage with pet owners, answer their inquiries, and increase brand awareness.

6. Establish membership system: Set attractive membership benefits, such as exclusive discounts, priority product purchasing, free delivery, etc. This will create customer loyalty.

5.3 Price

Our company will use Price skimming as our pricing strategy, which means that our company will set a relatively high price at first. As a company supplying necessities for pets, we need to consider about our target customers, which price they can accept, and their demand.

This price strategy fits us the most because inventing AMP is already a high-cost activity, so our cost will also be relatively high. I think this is sensible because our customers, usually someone who owns pets, are usually people who have already solved their own subsistence problem, and actually currently people who have pets are willing to buy product of high-quality, even a single pack of dog snack can has a price of 200+RMB.What’s more, more and more people refused having baby and they treat their pet well like they are their family, people cost a lot on pets’ health, but the vet lack an efficient method to resist cancer or other serious illness—but the AMP can do it. These evidence shows that our target customers are not quite sensitive to the price.

On the other hand, our product may have a potential barrier- once this high price product is put in the market, more and more competitors might imitate our technology. But the high price profit we earn before can be used into research, and our technology on AMP can be more advanced, and become the most credible and mature AMP compare to the others. Secondly, a high price might not attract so much customers, so some attractive advertisement and credibility should be considered carefully. Thirdly, we might face some issues on the first stage, however, with the development of our technology and the preference from our customers, our price will go down and more consumers will be involved, and the mature technology can help us to reach monopoly( or the best seller in AMP pets industry).

2mg of antimicrobial peptide should be added per 100ml of the product

Eye drops: 8ml (add 0.16mg of antimicrobial peptide)

Ointment :25ml (add 0.5mg of antimicrobial peptide)

Stomach medicine: 30ml (add 0.6mg of antimicrobial peptide)

Product	eyedrops	ointment	Digestive System medicine
Self (excluding antimicrobial peptide) volume	8ml	25ml	30ml
Self (without antimicrobial peptide) cost	￥14.9	￥31.7	￥21.6
Mass of antimicrobial peptide required (2mg of antimicrobial peptide per 100ml depending on its own volume)	0.16mg	0.5mg	0.6mg
Costs of antimicrobial peptides	￥1.37	￥4.3	￥5.15
Final Cost (per piece)	￥16.27	￥36	￥26.75
Price (single item)	￥42.3	￥93.6	￥69.55
Profit (single item)	￥26.03	￥57.6	￥42.8

We spent a long time setting the price of our products. The main problem was the result of our delay in determining our product type, which indirectly led to the cost of the product and the cost of our invention (antimicrobial peptide). After determining that our products were eye drops, ointment and gastric medicine, we formulated the volume of three products, 8ml, 25ml and 30ml respectively. After that, I checked the wholesale prices of three similar products without antimicrobial peptides, which is our cost. After asking professionals, we learned that 2mg of antimicrobial peptides (￥ 19) should be added to every 100ml of drugs. Then we got the price of adding antimicrobial peptides in the three products, plus their wholesale price, which became the cost of our products. Our profit margin comes from the most profitable pharmaceutical company in the country, with a profit margin of 60%, so our selling price is also 160% of the cost.

6 . Operation & Finance Management

6.1 Cost

l Production cost (to produce 2mg of our product)

Ingredient	cost
LB Broth (Miller) （ 1g required ）	6.5
Cana antibiotic (50mg required)	￥200/kg Final cost:￥ 0.1
Ampicyl antibiotics (100mg required)	￥260/kg Final cost: ￥ 0.26
Ni column purified resin (5ml required, each can use 200 times )	￥360 /5ml Final cost:￥ 1.8
Gidine Hydrochloride (300g required)	￥20/kg Final cost: ￥ 6
Disodium hydrogen phosphate (2g required)	￥1.9/kg Final cost: ￥ 0.0038
Imidazole (50g is required)	￥50/kg Final cost: ￥ 2.5
Sodium chloride (30g is required)	￥0.5/kg Final cost: ￥ 0.015
Total	￥17.18

l Research and Development cost

We will spend 20% yearly profit on research and development with the purpose of lowering production cost and better antimicrobial effect with new technology and production methods.

l Equipment Cost

Equipment	Price per unit (Yuan)
Plasmid Extraction kit DP103 (200 times)	140~185 use average: 162.5
DP209-02/03	220-825 use average:522.5
Horizontal electrophoresis instrument	120
Vertical electrophoresis instrument	200
Gel imaging system	9995
Small centrifuge (1.5-2 mL)	190~400 use average:295
Large centrifuge (15-50 mL)	900
Ultrasound crusher	80
super-clean bench	500-5000 use average:2750
draught cupboard	100-2500 use average:
Thermostatic incubator	150-2800 use average:1475
The constant temperature shake bed	845
bake out furnace	300
High pressure sterilization pot	400-4500 use average:
Nickel column purification kit	462
fridge（ 4℃ 、 -20℃ 、 -80℃ ）	400
PCR instrument	150-30000 use average:15075
high efficiency liquid chromatography	200
mass spectra	200
Microwave	200-5000 use average:2600
ultraviolet spectrophotometer	1100
electronic balance	10
analytical balance	150
5 Pipette gun (different range)	300-500 *use average:4005 = 2000**
TOTAL	￥4 5162

l Upfront Cost (first year)


Equipment	43562
Advertisement /year	50000
laboratory (production + research) /year	500,000
Total	593562

1kg LB Broth（ Miller4 ） and 1kg LB Broth with Agar could produce about 2mg antimicrobial peptide.

l Marketing cost

Put 50000 in to marketing in the first year, and 30% of our profit will be put in to marketing.

6.2 Product pricing

The production cost is 17.18yuan per 2mg.

l calculation: Annual revenue

According to "Pet Health Report" section of "2021 China Pet Medical Industry White Paper (Industry Research Report)" , 62.5% of cases are bacterial infection related. Moreover, According to the data released by the China Pet Industry Association, as of 2021, the number of pets in China has exceeded 100 million. Therefore, there are estimated 62.5 millions of pets get bacterial infection once a year. If we can only occupy 0.1% of the market on the first year, which is 625,000 pets that need our product.

Based on the information we found on the Internet, we found that 62500000 pets will have bacterial infections in 2021, and the pet market grew by 3% per year, so we predict that the number of pets with bacterial infections will also increase year on year, so we predict the number of bacterial infected pets from 2021 to 2029. Our three products: eye drops, ointment and gastrointestinal drops correspond to three possible diseases, namely eye diseases, skin infections and digestive system diseases. According to the survey (big data interpretation of pet medical industry research report), we found that the probability of eye diseases caused by bacterial infection is 2.19%, the probability of skin infection is 5.88%, and the probability of digestive system diseases is 11.26%. So we take these three probabilities by the number of bacterial infections each year to find about how many pets will have these three diseases each year, and make the following table.

Number of bacterial infected pets from 2021 to 2029

Approximately how many pets suffer from eye diseases, skin infections and digestive diseases each year

Year	Total Estimate number of bacterial infected pets	Number of Eye infection	Number of Skin Infection	Number of Digestive System Infection
2021	62500000	1368750	3675000	7037500
2022	64375000	1409812	3785250	7248625
2023	66306250	1452106	3898807	7466083
2024	68295437	1495670	4015771	7690066
2025	70344300	1540540	4136244	7920768
2026	72454629	1586756	4260332	8158391
2027	74628268	1634359	4388142	8403143
2028	76867116	1683389	4519786	8655237
2029	79173130	1733891	4655380	8914894

l We estimate our market share from 2021 to 2029

Year	Estimate Market occupation(%)	Reason
2021	0%	Haven’t enter the market
2022	0%	Haven’t enter the market
2023	0.1%	Just entered the market, no reputation, no customers
2024	0.16%	Start to adapt to the market marketing strategy, the situation has improved
2025	0.256%	Larger scale, more customers
2026	0.4096%	Become a small reputation, harvest a lot of loyal customers
2027	0.65536%	Technological innovation, and the scale has been expanded again
2028	1.048576%	The whole antimicrobial peptide market is expanding rapidly, and our company has successfully obtained a higher market share by using good marketing means.
2029	1.677722%	Keep expanding

By bringing our projected annual market share into the number of animals with eye diseases, skin infections and digestive diseases, we successfully obtained the number of our annual products that can treat pets with these three diseases separately, and make the following table. How many sick pets do our company need to treat every year .

Year	Number of pets our company need to take care of in total
2021	0
2022	0
2023	1281699
2024	2112241
2025	3480973
2026	5736644
2027	9453990
2028	15580175
2029	25676129

After determining the number of pets we need to treat each year, we can start to analyze the relationship between our cost and turnover. But before that, we need to assume that each pet using our products only buys one of our products per year, so the number of pets we need to treat each year is equal to the number of products we need to produce each year. So we can make the following chart.

Year	Revenue for eye	Revenue for Skin	Revenue of Digest	Total Revenue
2021	0	0	0	0
2022	0	0	0	0
2023	6142412.081	36492838.2	51926612.48	94561862.76
2024	10122695.11	60140197.35	85575057.37	155837949.8
2025	16682201.54	99111045.24	141027694.5	256820941.3
2026	27492268.14	163335002.6	232413640.6	423240911.3
2027	45307257.89	269176084.2	383017679.7	697501021.8
2028	74666361.01	443602186.8	631213136.2	1149481684
2029	123050162.9	731056403.8	1040239248	1894345815

Year	Cost of eye	Cost of skin	Cost of digest	Total cost
2021	0	0	0	593542
2022	0	0	0	593542
2023	2362577.89	14035707	19971774	36963600.92
2024	3893528.36	23130845	32913484	60531399.1
2025	6416534.73	38119633	54241421	99371130.49
2026	10574449.2	62821155	89389862	163379007.8
2027	17426692.3	103529263	147314492	268863989.7
2028	28719189	170616226	242774283	442703239.8
2029	47329223.4	47329223.4	281175540	729190324

Year	Profit of eye	Profit of skin	Profit of digest	Total profit
2021	0	0	0	0
2022	0	0	0	0
2023	3779834.2	22457131.2	31954838.45	58191803.85
2024	6229166.75	37009352.2	52661573.77	95900092.74
2025	10265666.8	60991412.5	86786273.57	158043352.8
2026	16917818.9	100513848	143023778.8	260455445.5
2027	27880565.6	165646821	235703187.5	429230574.1
2028	45947172	272985961	388438853	707371986.2
2029	75720939.5	449880864	640147229.8	1165749033