AI Assisted New Drug R & D Robots Become Cancer Fighters: The Trillion Market Of Digital Medicine Is Rising

21st century innovation capital research institute   Researcher Zhao Na reports from Suzhou

In a cloud dialogue a few months ago, Ren Feng, chief scientific officer of the AI drug research and development company insilico medicine, asked two investors: "if the score is from 1 to 10, 10 is the most mature. What stage is the AI enabled medical health development now? Is AI empowering healthcare omnipotent? "

Li Kaifu, chairman and CEO of Innovation workshop, and Liang Jianyu, managing partner of Qiming venture capital, gave the same answer: "1 point."

Lee believes that artificial intelligence will reshape the future of individuals, businesses and society, and believes that the best application scenario of AI is in the field of health care. Liang Jianyu is the managing partner of Qiming venture capital. In recent years, the medical and health investment team led by Liang Jianyu has been firmly deployed in AI and digital medical related fields and invested in Schr? More than 10 companies, including dinger, Meishi medicine, micro medicine, smart hand doctor, and inference technology.

Investors' low scores are not too pessimistic or dissatisfied with the market, but because of their high expectations for "Ai + healthcare" and the future of broader digital healthcare.

"Ai + medical" is only the first step, and there is a huge market potential ahead. The earliest large-scale application in this field is in the field of "Ai + image", which benefits from the maturity of AI image recognition technology. Since then, the technology application has gradually derived to drug research and development, and has made significant progress.

On the whole, on the one hand, from the perspective of the health care industry, there are still many areas where AI has not yet been involved. On the other hand, in addition to "Ai + medical", there is still a broader digital medical market.

The economist's article points out that digital medicine will be the next trillion dollar industry. Yu Feng, co-founder and chairman of Yunfeng fund, said publicly that with the acceleration of digital innovation in China's medical and health industry, a number of medical and health enterprises with a market value of over 100 billion will appear in China in the next 10 years.

Favorable policies to promote the process of medical Digitalization

In recent years, the Chinese government attaches great importance to digital medicine, and has issued many policies related to the digitalization of medical industry. For example, in April 2018, the general office of the State Council issued the opinions on promoting the development of "Internet + medical health", making a deployment for promoting the deep integration of Internet and medical health. Since 2019, the development of "Internet + medical health" has been written into the government work report for three consecutive years.

In this year's government work report, it is clearly proposed that the government should support the public in running medical services and promote the standardized development of "Internet + medical health". At a regular press conference of the National Health Commission on March 23, Mao Qun'an, director of the planning department of the National Health Commission, said that the policy benefits of "Internet + medical health" development are increasingly apparent.

In April 2018, opinions on promoting the development of "Internet + medical health" proposed to further promote the deep integration of Internet and medical health.

In September 2019, the guiding opinions on improving the "Internet +" medical service price and medical insurance payment policy made clear that the provincial-based implementation of hierarchical management of medical service price items.

In March 2020, the "guidance on promoting the implementation of" Internet plus "medical insurance service during the prevention and control of new crown pneumonia epidemic situation clearly defines that online follow-up services for common diseases and chronic diseases provided by internet medical institutions that meet the requirements can be included in the payment scope of medical insurance fund according to regulations.

In March 2020, the "guiding opinions on promoting the development of" Internet plus "medical insurance services during the period of prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic situation" and the "opinions on deepening the reform of the medical security system" gave the "green light" for the internet medical institutions to issue electronic prescriptions, diagnosis and treatment fees, and medical insurance online direct settlement.

In September 2020, the "opinions on accelerating the development of new consumption with new formats and new models" proposed to actively develop Internet health and medical services, and vigorously promote services such as time-based appointment diagnosis and treatment, Internet diagnosis and treatment, electronic prescription circulation, and drug online sales.

In November 2020, the "guiding opinions of the State Medical Security Bureau on actively promoting the payment of medical insurance for" Internet + "medical services proposed the implementation of the price and payment policy of" Internet + "medical services.

Throughout the current digital health market, startups are mainly established by entrepreneurs with TMT and healthcare backgrounds. They have different understanding of cutting-edge technology, medical system and medical system, which affects the company's entrepreneurial path and product route selection, and brings the company to different industries in the future.

The founders of the company choose their route according to the future the team sees and provide products and services for the market with different business models. As far as investors are concerned, they are also making their investment choices according to the future prospect of the industry as seen by the investment team.

On the one hand, when discussing the future of digital healthcare in China, investors often refer to the market size and enterprise size of the United States. On the other hand, they are aware of the differences in medical system and medical system between China and the United States, as well as the different understanding of software services and digital medicine between the two markets.

Therefore, entrepreneurs and investors are looking for and practicing their own solutions from different perspectives and needs in the Chinese market, where favorable policies, huge market potential, and technology application bring more possibilities.

Epidemic situation arouses public health consciousness; medical treatment from "treating the sick and saving people" to "health management"

In January 2021, more than ten patients with Parkinson's disease in Jiangxi Province met Mao Zhiqi, chief neurosurgery physician of Beijing 301 Hospital in the conference room of Shangrao people's hospital.

This is an online free clinic activity of the Department of Neurosurgery of Shangrao people's Hospital connecting with Dr. Mao Zhiqi through 5g remote video diagnosis and treatment equipment. At the scene of the free clinic, the patient described the symptoms to Dr. Mao 1500 km away with the medical records. Soon, the suggestions for the next diagnosis and treatment plan were presented to the patients along with the optical fiber.

The application scenarios of digital medicine not only occur in hospitals, but also extend from serious medical fields such as online diagnosis and treatment, prescription drug renewal to medical examination, medical beauty and other consumer medical fields. According to Frost & Sullivan report, the scale of China's digital health market will be 218.1 billion yuan in 2019, which is expected to reach 4.2 trillion yuan by 2030, with an annual compound growth rate of 30.9%.

The new coronapneumonia epidemic in 2020 further accelerated the digital process of the medical industry. The government departments encouraged the standardized development of internet medical care, and the public had more health awareness and tried to obtain medical information and medical services through digital means. As the infrastructure of modern society, changes in the field of insurance and payment are also taking place.

The digital process of medical industry continues to accelerate. From the perspective of public health system, the development of medical information industry has been more than 20 years. The new crown pneumonia epidemic makes health management departments and medical institutions further realize the necessity and importance of digitalization. In the broader medical industry, emerging technologies such as big data and AI bring the possibility of improving the efficiency of medicine, devices, diagnosis and medical services.

Digital medical scenarios for individual users are expanding rapidly. In the era of mobile Internet when smart phones are just becoming popular, "light consultation" is just a new thing that few people know and less people try. Nowadays, prevention, consultation and drug purchase can be completed online, and the number of Internet enabled health terminals used by people at home and at home is also increasing, which brings new opportunities for digital personal health management.

The blue ocean of commercial health insurance market remains to be explored. With the aging of China's population and the number of chronic diseases increasing, the pressure of medical insurance fund expenditure will continue to increase, and the payment pattern of medical insurance needs to be improved through commercial insurance. Entrepreneurs with continuous entrepreneurial experience have entered the market in recent years to provide technical support and mode innovation in the fields of insurance and payment. These start-ups will become an important force in the new market pattern.

Integration of cutting edge technology and medical treatment accelerates digital medical investment and financing to a new high

In 2020, when the new crown pneumonia epidemic is rampant, the pandemic has aroused the public's attention to medical and health, and capital has accelerated to flow into the medical and health field, especially the digital health field.

PE / VC is an important force to promote innovation. According to CB insights, a market research institution, the scale of global health investment and financing reached a record high of US $80.6 billion in 2020, and 187 medical and health enterprises completed a single financing of more than US $100 million. In the field of digital health, the total amount of financing in the whole year reached 26.5 billion US dollars, an increase of 45% compared with the same period last year, which also set a record high.

In terms of investment and financing in China's medical and health field, according to the data of investment, 485 medical and health enterprises announced their financing process in 2020, among which 298 transactions disclosed the transaction scale, with a total financing scale of more than 200 billion yuan.

"Ai + medical" is a track that attracts more gold in the medical and health field. Cvsource investment data shows that Shukun technology will complete the financing of about US $150 million in 2020, and the company's investors include Sequoia Capital, Huagai capital, Wuyuan capital, Chuangshi partner capital CCV, Qiming venture capital, etc; Keya ark has completed financing with a total scale of more than 100 million US dollars. The company's investors include Kunlun capital, Shanghai Guofang master fund, GGV Jiyuan capital, IDG capital, source code capital, etc.

(this paper is the third part of the series of research on medical health of investment and financing research in 21 industries) by the 21st century innovation capital research institute