[Exclusive] Daewoong Pharmaceutical Enters Maternal Nutrition Supplement Market in Partnership with Mamitok

Targeting Early-Stage Expecting Mothers Directly
Leveraging a Platform with 1.5 Million Users

Daewoong Pharmaceutical is making a full-fledged entry into the prenatal and maternity supplement market. The company has laid out a strategy to target the market—currently dominated by foreign pharmaceutical firms—in partnership with a pregnancy and parenting platform.

According to the pharmaceutical industry on August 24, Daewoong Pharmaceutical plans to launch a prenatal supplement co-developed with Mamytok as early as next month. Mamytok operates an app-based platform providing pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare information, ultrasound image management, community, and shopping functions. The platform boasts a global cumulative membership of 2.7 million and some 700,000 monthly active users.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical's plan is to secure early access to online distribution channels through Mamytok and achieve rapid market entry. As Mamytok allows users to view and share ultrasound images taken at obstetrics and gynecology clinics—a feature that attracts a relatively higher number of consumers in early pregnancy—the company expects to leverage this strength for tailored marketing.

Daewoong Pharmaceutical intends to launch a product line that allows consumers to conveniently take essential nutrients needed during pregnancy and breastfeeding, based on advice from obstetric specialists, and begin sales through Mamytok Store and similar channels.

Currently, the domestic prenatal supplement market is led by over-the-counter products from global pharmaceutical companies, such as Bayer's Elevit and Pfizer's Centrum Prenatal. While the emergence of the health functional food market has enabled companies like CHA Biotech Group's CHA Bio F&C with Motherscare, and Chong Kun Dang with Gounmothers, to enter the market, industry sources say foreign firms still have the upper hand.

The prenatal supplement market is perceived in the industry as a "long-tail market." There are virtually no repeat purchases, and customers churn entirely at the end of pregnancy and breastfeeding, meaning that the consumer base is replaced every year. An industry source explained, "While it is difficult to build up brand awareness, the company that reaches consumers in the early stages of pregnancy first gets a new opportunity every time." This market structure is seen as the reason behind Daewoong Pharmaceutical's emphasis on securing sales channels.

Recently, Daewoong Pharmaceutical has been ramping up its health functional food business. As soon as Daiso began selling health functional foods last year, Daewoong Pharmaceutical started supplying its products. It subsequently expanded its distribution network by supplying 12 new products to the convenience store chain 7-Eleven. At its regular general shareholders’ meeting in March this year, the company amended its articles of incorporation to include the business purpose of manufacturing health functional foods, and it acquired a factory in Hoengseong, Gangwon Province to build in-house manufacturing capabilities.

In the first half of this year, the Hoengseong factory recorded a health functional food production capacity of 6.7 billion won, with actual production reaching 800 million won. For the first half of this year, Daewoong Pharmaceutical's consolidated sales were 826.3 billion won, marking an 8.4% increase compared to the same period last year.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.