Interview with Ms. Vera Xu, Co-founder of JUVAMED
Ms. Vera Xu, has an EMBA degree from the KEDGE Business School of Marseille, France, at Shanghai Jiaotong University, and joined JUVAMED in 2009. She is now the Managing Director of JUVAMED (Tianjin) Medical Technology Co. The Group focuses on the global innovation of dermatology technology, with several R&D centers in China, France, and Israel, and has established world-leading proprietary core technologies in the fields of semiconductor lasers, biomaterials, and radiofrequency, as well as a number of patented products. In 2023, Haohai BioScience acquired JUVAMED and JUVAMED became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Haohai BioScience.
Under the leadership of Ms Xu for 15 years, with her macro analysis of the industry, deep professional experience, she makes decisions to promote the transformation and optimization of a variety of industries, such as medical aesthetics, scientific aesthetics, and biological aesthetics, empowering organizations with the latest technology and solutions, serving more than 1,000 beauty industry brands across the country, and promoting the lasting and healthy development of China’s beauty industry. SpaChina interviewed her.
What are the important innovations and breakthroughs of JUVAMED Beauty Tech in beauty and health technology?
We have been continuously strengthening our independent R&D advantages and integrating the world’s leading technological resources in the fields of RF, laser and biomaterials, and have now established a full-scenario product pipeline covering medical institutions, beauty salons, and home use to meet the market’s consumer demand. We are committed to the joint application of devices and biomaterials to provide consumers with full-scene, full-case skin care solutions.
For example, we have developed the world’s only multi-source, phase-controlled radiofrequency (RF) technology, which delivers RF energy to all layers of the skin in a more effective and safer manner. Six RF emitters control six electrodes at the same time, creating three sets of fixed magnetic fields that repel each other and allow RF heat to be transmitted to the deeper layers of the skin, thus promoting energy penetration and anti-aging across the entire skin area. This technology is used in medical, cosmetic, and home devices to empower users across the board. (U.S. Unite States Patent and Trademark Office Patent No. 9039697; China Patent No. CN2015900003582)
We have also developed the world’s first hyaluronic acid filled Velvet Technology. This process avoids inflammation and granulomas, is now CE certified, and we are currently applying for certification under China’s NMPA.
In addition, we have the world’s longest-lasting “High Power VCSEL Laser”, which has about 13 patents at home and abroad. This new generation of semiconductor lasers, with laser light emitted perpendicularly from the top surface, is different from the edge-type laser light emitted from the edge and has a long service life that is about 4-5 times longer than that of ordinary products. (Patent No. 2537585)
There is also the world’s first water purification technology, which has obtained a national patent, realizing 0 alcohol in sodium hyaluronate original liquid and 8% high activity, and also developed the first DMAE + 18 kinds of amino acids + hyaluronic acid kinetin, and both biomaterials can be combined with the introduction equipment (RF, nano-crystalline), which can introduce the essence to the basal layer, so as to make the skin more plumped up, more elastic, and tighter. (Patent No. 202310418487.4)
What are the unique advantages of your business in the market? What are the design and considerations in terms of user experience?
In the technology category, we are globally recognized, especially in the field of patented RF, laser and biomaterial technologies and their applications in the medical and cosmetic scopes, which can be considered as the top level.
Our strengths in the business category are mainly in the following areas: analysis of technical inputs for new stores, small and micro-chained komedicine construction and operation accompaniment, and cross-city and national chain brands of komedicine and biomedicine organizations providing project design and annual planning programs. We pursue long-termist business thinking, in the search for business solutions, marketing programs and talent training, and all have complete strategies and services.
In terms of user experience, we focus on analyzing what kind of consumption cycle can be brought by different technologies from the perspective of management. Popular products are not the king, but the optimal solution is to match consumption demand and business demand. We analyze the global and domestic cosmetic skin demand change data every year to gain earlier insight into the development of potential consumer demand and guide future operation planning. Our accompanying service runs through the whole process of customer’s operation, and we get the feedback from users at any time, so as to get the inspiration of innovation.
How does JUVAMED stay compliant and ahead of the curve when it comes to industry standards and policies?
As a brand with both a multinational industrial chain and affiliated with a domestic listed company that is diversified in the fields of radiofrequency, biologics, lasers, and products, our R&D capability, production capacity, global supply and sales system, new technology patents are awarded every year. This helps maintain a solid technology leadership in the upstream of the industry, and allow us to do more clinical indications development for more dermatologists around the world, while continuously empowering the industry in the midstream and downstream to bring in scale revenues.
On the other hand, we are a defender of industry standards and policies and regulations. We serve the global medical aesthetics market with the standard qualifications of FDA, CFDA, CE, etc., including the compliance of aesthetic spa technology application. We are also the vice chairman of the China Medical Device Industry Association (CMDA) and a co-editor of the “Standardized Construction of Body Contouring Centers” in China.
How do you see the uniqueness of the Chinese market? How do you balance the relationship between internationalization and localization?
China’s beauty market is all-encompassing, including spa, lifestyle beauty, medical beauty and more. These different business models have competition and cooperation with emphasis on the structuring of the core income, the unchanging theme is to optimize in the change; international brands in the start-up phase of some beauty institutions have a strong influence and share, but with the domestic R & D capabilities of the innovation capacity in the last five years, the strong development of biologics, cost and industry chain advantages highlighted, grasp their own beauty agencies belong to what stage, combined with Chinese and Western advantages is the inevitable result.
How do you see the development trend of China’s beauty and health technology industry? What advice do you have for the younger generation of practitioners?
From the perspective of the national economic development plan, the predicted five-year growth rate of the service industry in the future is 17%, in which beauty and health science and technology, information consumption, customized consumption, digital consumption, and fashion consumption are covered and influenced by several major sectors.
Broadly speaking, “aesthetic power” will become an increasingly important incentive for the beauty and health technology industry. Health, safety, effectiveness and stability are the hardware requirements of beauty technology. New talent development and turnover, industry competition and continued growth in the process of increasing costs and other factors, will accelerate the industry to apply data algorithms and new media marketing applications, to be able to significantly manage efficiency.
To young people I would like to say that if you want to enter this field, you need to deeply understand the development of the industry’s upstream technology, understand the direction of its growth and profit model to figure out the sustainability of the value of the services and the logic of the operation design.