Zhong is the founder and chairlady of Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group, a Chinese maker of psychotropic drugs. The company, based in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, produces medicines to treat conditions including diabetes, infections, tumors and diseases of the nervous system. It had revenue of 12.3 billion yuan ($1.7 billion) in 2024.
Zhong's fortune is derived from her majority stake in Hansoh Pharmaceutical Group Co. She holds a 64% stake in the Chinese drugmaker, according to the company's August 2025 report to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Zhong holds her stake through the Sunrise Trust, which was registered in the British Virgin Islands by her daughter in 2016, according to the listing prospectus. Zhong is credited with all of the stake to reflect her status as founder and chairwoman of the business. She collected more than $800 million in dividends since Hansoh was set up in 1995, according to calculation by Bloomberg.
She also owns 2% of the Shanghai-listed stock of Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, an anti-cancer drug producer chaired by her husband Sun Piaoyang, according to the company's 2025 third-quarter report. Zhong holds the stake through her 7.2% ownership in Hengrui Group, according to the company's 2025 semi-annual report.
A spokesperson for the company didn't respond to a request for comment on the net worth calculation.
Born in 1961, Zhong obtained an undergraduate degree in chemistry from Jiangsu Normal University in Xuzhou at the age of 21. She became a chemistry teacher in a middle school in Lianyungang, China, after graduation. Zhong's husband, Sun Piaoyang, worked at a government-run pharmaceutical factory in Lianyungang at that time, which later became Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine.
Zhong quit her teaching job in 1995 and started her own medicine business, Jiangsu Hansoh Pharmaceutical. She began with just 10 employees, according to an interview in the Chinese media. The company started growing quickly in 1997 and reached 30 million yuan ($4.5 million) in sales in the same year.
The Liangyungang-based business reported revenue of 9.9 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) in 2021, according to its annual report. Its main therapeutic areas are diseases of the central nervous system, oncology, anti-infectives, diabetes, as well as gastrointestinal and cardiovascular treatments.