China’s 100 richest: China’s tech boom has been a major driver of its wealth. From the AI stock jump to the billionaire boom, Forbes recently rolled out the list of China’s 100 richest. On the list was the world’s third-richest self-made woman and overall 16th in China. This is Zhong Huijan.
Zhong Huijan, the pharmaceutical mogul, has rapidly grown her asset, Nasoh Pharmaceutical, to one of the pioneers in the field. Becoming the largest producer of psychotropic drugs in China, the company also provides oncology, anti-diabetic medicines and antibiotics. It also deals with cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, and endocrine treatments.
Who is Zhong Huijan?
Zhong Huijan was born in April 1961 in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province, China. She graduated with a degree in chemistry from Jiangsu Normal University in 1982 and used to work as a chemistry teacher.
Leaving her teaching career behind, in 1995, Zhong Huijuan co-founded Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group alongside her husband Sun Piaoyang and a Hong Kong investor. While her husband managed a state-owned pharmaceutical factory, Zhong took charge of the fledgling Hansoh Pharmaceutical. What started with just 10 employees, the company today has over 8000 employees. Under Zhong Juijan’s leadership, the company reinvested a significant portion of its sales into research and development—initially 5%, later increasing to nearly 10%, an unusually high figure for a Chinese pharmaceutical company. With just 10 employees, the company reached sales of 30 million yuan ($4.5 million.) They took Hansoh public in 2019 on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising $1 billion in its IPO.
Her husband, Sun Pioyang, is also a billionaire and leads Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, which is listed in both Shanghai and Hong Kong. With a 66% ownership of Hansoh, Zhong Huijan’s net worth surged during the COVID-19 pandemic via her Sunrise Trust, based in the British Virgin Islands. Her daughter, Sun Yuan, the executive director of Hansoh, set up the Trust in 2016.
Contributing to her wealth and her aim for the global expansion of Hansoh, Huijan also owns 2% of the Shanghai-listed stock of her husband’s anti-cancer pharma company.
