This New Player in Feed Additives Is Not Simple—Using These Strategies to Break Through the 5 Billion Red Ocean Market

Source: Shuishuo Aquaculture, by Tang Dongdong https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/9f4nx3w_K8bbeqaSX5-SSA

As the aquatic feed industry embraces high-protein/high-fat dietary technical routes today, liver and gallbladder health and fat metabolism are becoming critical bottlenecks constraining farming profitability. At the same time, bile acids, as a core functional component, are stuck in a development dilemma within the domestic feed-grade market—valued at over 500 million RMB—characterized by inconsistent standards and market chaos.

Sichuan Qianneng Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Sichuan Qianneng"), founded in early 2024, is not simply a new player. Its core team possesses deep expertise in the research legacy of bile acids in the pharmaceutical field and the application logic within the agriculture and animal husbandry industry, committed to redefining feed-grade bile acid products with pharmaceutical-grade standards. Located within a 160-acre industrial park, the company has formed an industrial chain synergy system with a century-old traditional Chinese medicine enterprise, spanning from bilirubin extraction to the deep development of bile acids and plant extracts. This establishes a rare foundation of differentiated advantages in raw material traceability and process innovation.

Some signs indicate that Sichuan Qianneng is attempting to steer this product category from crude application towards a new phase characterized by clearly defined components, stable functionality, and scenario-specific suitability. Recently, the author conducted a discussion with Yu Feng, General Manager of Sichuan Qianneng, aiming to clarify the actual pain points and technical misconceptions within the bile acid industry and explore how an emerging enterprise builds its own product and operational philosophy amidst the chaos.

▲ Zhang Xiangjun (second from right), Chairman of Sichuan Qianneng, and Yu Feng (first from right), General Manager

1

Breaking Through with Pharmaceutical-Grade Standards

Dongdong: Could you briefly introduce the basic situation of Sichuan Qianneng?

Yu Feng: We are a new type of specialized technology company in animal nutrition and health, jointly founded by seasoned professionals from the animal nutrition and pharmaceutical industries. We focus on basic and applied research in the fields of fat nutrition and liver-gallbladder health. We are committed to solving the pain points in the farming industry arising from the current high-intensity nutritional background characterized by high protein, high fat, and high energy, providing the industry with comprehensive solutions for the efficient utilization of lipid nutrition and enhancing animal health and farming profitability.

There are three enterprises in our park. Two are pharmaceutical companies. Their main products involve extracting bilirubin from animal bile sources like pig gall and ox gall to produce artificial bezoar, and extracting puerarin from wild kudzu root for applications in cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, as well as biochemical extraction for pharmaceuticals addressing health issues like hyperglycemia, hyperlipidemia, and oxidation. Relying on their production capacity and testing technology, Sichuan Qianneng further extracts bile acid products needed by the farming industry through processes like saponification and acidification after bilirubin extraction.

Currently, the company has obtained feed additive and premix production licenses. It now possesses two advanced pharmaceutical-grade animal and plant extraction production lines, one lipid nutritional product production line, and one mixed feed additive production line. This allows for independent production of high-purity bile acid products (capable of producing around 5000 tons of feed-grade bile acid annually), extraction, purification, and compound production of natural plant extracts, and production and deep processing of long, medium, and short-chain fatty acid series lipid nutritional products.

Simultaneously, referencing pharmaceutical industry testing standards, we have established a professional testing laboratory equipped with a batch of testing equipment, including High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC), ensuring that the core active ingredient content of our products is precise, clear, and sufficient.

▲ Equipped High-Performance Liquid Chromatograph (HPLC)

Dongdong: Bile acid products have specific testing methods and clear component requirements; in principle, they should be standardized products. Why is the market still so chaotic?

Yu Feng: The application of bile acids in the farming industry has gone through several stages: Initially, by-products from the pharmaceutical industry were used after they extracted bilirubin, chenodeoxycholic acid, hyodeoxycholic acid, and other active components according to their own needs. The main standard was using titration to quantify total acid content. Actually, when bile acids were approved as a new feed additive in 2014, the HPLC standard and component requirements were also specified. However, perhaps because this method requires specialized detectors and the operation is relatively cumbersome. Furthermore, the vast majority of feed production enterprises did not understand bile acids as deeply as they do now and were not necessarily willing to make such investments for this single product.

At the same time, even pig bile varies in quality. The shorter the farming time, the lower the content of active components in the pig bile. This leads to situations where some companies use pig bile paste (after bilirubin extraction) to produce feed-grade bile acids, resulting in unstable batch-to-batch content. Moreover, upstream pharmaceutical companies, besides extracting bilirubin, may also separately extract active components like chenodeoxycholic acid and hyodeoxycholic acid based on market prices—especially chenodeoxycholic acid, which itself is a drug for treating gallstones and can be used to biosynthesize the higher-value ursodeoxycholic acid.

If feed additive or premix bile acid companies themselves lack the professional capability to objectively assess the quality of bile paste, it is difficult to produce products with stable components. This is also a major reason why some customers experience inconsistent results after using bile acid products.

For a long time, many companies in the industry, including some leading ones, have continued to use titration to evaluate bile acid products for various reasons. Due to standard issues, the quality of bile acid products circulating in the market varies greatly. It is even common to find products labeled as bile acids with zero detected content of main components.

In recent years, with advocacy from our company and some feed companies in the industry that have the capability and apply bile acids effectively, they have started using HPLC for qualitative and quantitative evaluation of bile acids. By clarifying the scientific content of components like hyocholic acid, hyodeoxycholic acid, and chenodeoxycholic acid in products, the bile acid product can finally develop in the right direction.

▲ Production Workshop

▲ Feed Additive-Grade Bile Paste Blocks after Saponification and Drying

2

Differentiated Value Proposition

Dongdong: Given such a market environment, what gives you the confidence to enter the bile acid field, or in other words, what are Qianneng's differentiated advantages?

Yu Feng:First, the pig bile paste we use has only had bilirubin extracted; all other active components are completely retained. This results in a feed additive-grade bile acid product with more stable composition. We have integrated the pharmaceutical industry's research achievements in bile acids and traditional Chinese medicine, essentially "standing on the shoulders of giants" to develop our products, which allows us to avoid many pitfalls. With access to these high-quality materials, production capacity, and technical resources, we are capable of systematically, standardly, stably, and economically delivering bile acid products that address industry pain points, empower the industry, and create value for our clients.

Second, in traditional Chinese medicine, pig bile, ox bile, bear bile, snake bile, etc., are themselves medicinal materials. The processing methods of Chinese medicine are a profound and sophisticated processing technology. We have inherited Chinese medicine processing techniques and made optimizations and improvements in bile acid production. We employ technologies such as gentle hydrolysis combining enzymatic digestion and saponification, and microwave low-temperature drying, to maximally preserve the effective active ingredients in bile acids.

Third, while ensuring stable bile acid product quality and clear component content, we develop targeted products based on the difficulties and pain points in fat metabolism and liver-gallbladder health. Guided by the traditional Chinese medicine theory of "sovereign, minister, assistant, and envoy" in formula composition, we apply bile acids in combination with natural plant extracts to construct effective and practical solutions. This has helped many companies systematically resolve liver-gallbladder health issues.

Fourth, the R&D team led by our Chief Scientist, Dr. Yuan, has proactively and innovatively developed four core technologies. These include "Enhanced Utilization Technology for Lipids in the Intestinal Oil-in-Water Microenvironment," "Precision Utilization Technology for In Vitro Reconstruction of Animal Bile Acid Spectrum," "High-Efficiency Utilization Technology for Balanced Fatty Acid Blending in Ideal Fats," and "Mobilization, Distribution, and Conversion Utilization Technology for Redundantly Deposited Visceral Fats." Relying on these technologies, the series of liver-gallbladder nutrition regulation products developed for poultry/livestock, aquaculture, ruminants, and pets are gaining increasing recognition from clients.

▲ Application Results

Dongdong: Based on your understanding, do different farming species have varying requirements for bile acid components?

Yu Feng: Dr. Yuan's team has long been dedicated to researching the bile acid spectrum of different animals. From the information we have, the main component composition of bile indeed differs among species. For example, pig bile mainly contains hyodeoxycholic acid, chenodeoxycholic acid, and cholic acid. Ruminant bile is primarily composed of cholic acid, deoxycholic acid, and a small amount of chenodeoxycholic acid.

Aquatic species also show differences. Carnivorous fish like California bass (largemouth bass) and snakehead have higher levels of chenodeoxycholic acid in their bile, while herbivorous fish like grass carp (a cyprinid) have higher levels of deoxycholic acid. Poultry bile mainly consists of chenodeoxycholic acid and a small amount of cholic acid. But honestly, achieving extreme precision is quite challenging and not very economical. We design our products based on principles combining commonalities with differentiation, and precision with cost-effectiveness.

For instance, in the feed additive-grade bile acid product we designed for carnivorous fish, the chenodeoxycholic acid content is intentionally set higher. Currently, our products can generally achieve over 3%, and end-use application products can even reach 6%. On this basis, we then design other corresponding components considering the technology for in vitro reconstruction and utilization of different animals' bile acid spectra.。

Dongdong: Regarding the application of bile acid products, what other innovative ideas do you have?

Yu Feng: Our next step is to launch conjugated bile acids. This is because, inside an animal's body, most bile acids exist in a conjugated form, bound to amino acids like glycine or taurine. This conjugated state enhances the polarity and water solubility of bile acids, allowing them to better perform their physiological and biochemical functions.

The mainstream bile acid products on the market, extracted through deep saponification of bile paste, actually convert most of the conjugated forms into free forms. Preliminary tests have found that with the same 10% bile acid content, the activity of the conjugated form is about 50% higher than that of the free form. Therefore, from the very beginning of the company's project establishment, we were contemplating how to produce conjugated bile acids.

Currently, Dr. Yuan's R&D team has made significant breakthroughs in this area. Their innovative "one-pot activated ester method" for producing conjugated bile acids has greatly improved yield, optimized costs, and met the conditions for industrial application.