ChRuimed Medical Files for IPO Amid the Booming Billion-Dollar Tumor Intervention Market

Interventional medicine is one of the most active and fastest-growing disciplines in the current medical field, with the rapid development of interventional treatment for liver cancer being a microcosm.

The industry surrounding the field of tumor intervention has also maintained a high level of activity, with financing/M&A amounts in this field exceeding 30 billion yuan. In recent years, relevant companies both domestically and internationally have continued to make acquisitions to enhance their product portfolios in the field of tumor intervention. The innovative achievements of domestic companies are also continuously being realized. Cardiolink Science's core product, embolic microspheres, has been approved, making it the only new embolic microsphere product to be launched domestically in nearly 8 years.

It can be foreseen that as more products are approved, precise tumor intervention and embolization therapies will enter a period of rapid penetration.Standardization and refinement of tumor interventional embolization therapy also place higher demands on innovative products.The product pipeline will become the biggest moat for commercialization.

Cardiolink Science Aims at the Next Generation of Tumor Intervention Needs, Developing More Precise and Efficient Tumor Embolization Devices. How Will Cardiolink Science Launch Commercialization with Its New Generation of Tumor Embolization Products? VCBeat Interviewed Che Haibo, Founder of Cardiolink Science, Who Has Extensive Experience in the Medical Device Industry Chain.

TACE (Transarterial Chemoembolization) is a globally recognized primary treatment method for unresectable liver cancer. In recent years, as the status of TACE in tumor intervention has been continuously strengthened in guidelines, China's TACE treatment market has entered a period of rapid development.

Academician Teng Gaojun once published a set of data: In 2019, liver cancer treatments performed in China using interventional technology could reach 1 to 1.5 million cases. Currently, no more than 30% of liver cancer patients in China are eligible for surgery, and among the remaining 70% of patients, up to 90% can be treated with interventional technology.

The rapid development of the TACE market was anticipated by Che Hai-bo, the founder of Cardiolink Science.As early as 2015, when he founded Cardiolink Science, he identified through the evidence-based logic of "therapy reading" that "tumor intervention" was still in the introduction phase in China. The needs of a large number of doctors and patients were not being met, and the technology was also in a period of rapid development. He proactively laid out products in the TACE field.

Before devoting himself to the medical device industry, Che Haibo worked as a cardiologist at Anzhen Hospital. He later joined well-known medical device companies such as Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, and Sorin, serving as a senior executive.

A profound medical background combined with extensive industry experience has honed an unparalleled clinical cognition and market acumen, enabling him to identify pressing clinical needs and potential commercial opportunities with foresight.

Due to the heterogeneity of liver cancer, TACE also exhibits significant heterogeneity. To address this issue, TACE procedures are evolving towards refinement and standardization, similar to the development of coronary interventions.Although the number of TACE procedures has reached millions, comparable to coronary interventions, unlike in the field of coronary interventions where doctors have a wide variety of products to choose from, there are not many tool-based or embolic products available for doctors in TACE treatments.

Tool-based products: In the past, TACE relied on a single "liver catheter" for everything. "Liver catheter" refers to catheters with sizes of 3Fr or even 4Fr.In complex hepatocellular carcinoma lesions, traditional microcatheters struggle to reach the target vessels of liver tumors, leading to suboptimal treatment outcomes. China’s National Quality Control Platform for Hepatocellular Carcinoma Diagnosis and Treatment has introduced the concept of refined TACE and provided its definition. Among the techniques, microcatheter super-selective technology serves as the foundation and prerequisite for refined TACE. Super-selection refers to the placement of a microcatheter into segmental (7th order), subsegmental, or even smaller direct arterial branches supplying the tumor.

Che HaiBo said, "For tool-based products, Cardiolink Science has made sufficient preparations. Cardiolink Science is the only company in China that can provide a complete solution from tools to treatment for ss-TACE (super selective TACE). Cardiolink Science can offer the thinnest 1.6Fr microcatheter in China."

It is worth mentioning that the ss-TACE microcatheter project was initiated by Cardiolink Science three years ago. Last year, expert consensus released in Europe stated that for all TACE treatments, ss-TACE should be selected to benefit patients more. This verifies Cardiolink Science's forward-looking therapy comprehension and technical accumulation capabilities.

In the core embolic material microspheres, the two most clinically focused core performances are: drug-loading speed and drug-release performance.A long drug-loading time can lead to cumbersome operations for doctors and prolonged surgery time; a fast drug release speed can result in a short-term burst release of the drug, leading to a short effective treatment duration and possibly causing certain toxic side effects.

Cardiolink Science, by mastering core technologies such as GCL gradient cross-linking and IPN molecular interpenetrating networks, has designed drug-eluting embolic microspheres with a "core-shell structure," which can simultaneously achieve highly efficient drug loading and long-term stable release. In terms of drug loading, the process that previously took 30 minutes to complete has been shortened to 5 minutes, greatly enhancing the convenience of clinical operations. In terms of drug release, long-term sustained release has been successfully achieved, with effective drug concentrations still detectable at the target site after 90 days, while systemic blood drug concentration remains extremely low, effectively reducing toxic side effects.

How to Open the TACE Market in China: First, Have a Strong Product. Cardiolink Science, Identifying Market Opportunities Through Therapy Insights and Strategically Positioning in Advance, Has Already Established a Comprehensive Solution with Both Tool-based and Embolization Products.

With the launch of Cardiolink Science's blank/drug-loaded embolic microspheres, Cardiolink Science now has a complete arsenal in the TACE field, capable of providing differentiated high-quality products for various clinical needs.

But to cross the commercialization threshold, in addition to requiring good weapons, a clear commercialization strategy and a strong team to implement the strategy are also needed.

In terms of commercialization strategy, Cardiolink Science has formulated plans based on the characteristics of China's TACE market and the policy environment.Product-Driven, Channel is King, Win at the Terminal, Embrace Centralized ProcurementCommercialization landing strategy.

In terms of product-driven strategy, Cardiolink Science's core products have been approved and granted the medical insurance code recognized by the National Healthcare Security Administration. A robust product portfolio has laid a solid foundation for commercialization. The sufficient pipeline layout and the successive launches of iterative products will continue to serve as the moat for Cardiolink Science’s commercial success.

The "Channel is King" strategy focuses on expanding product coverage through collaboration with channel partners; "Winning at the Terminal" emphasizes shifting attention to users by using China's top-tier tertiary hospitals as a starting point. This approach aims to quickly expand and implement market education, enabling more doctors to use Cardiolink Science’s products. The essence of embracing centralized procurement lies in the normalization of centralized procurement driving the industry towards innovation-driven and quality-driven growth. Cardiolink Science will seize the opportunity for high-quality development by actively responding to relevant policies and the implementation of medical device centralized procurement with innovative products and stable supply capabilities. This will reduce patients' medical costs, allow technological innovation to benefit more patients, expand patient access, and enable more patients to use high-quality domestically produced medical device products.

Cardiolink Science's commercialization strategy is built on seizing the key links of the industry chain, with four major strategies interlocking to jointly drive the achievement of Cardiolink Science's commercialization goals.

A Clear Commercialization Strategy Requires a Strong Team for Execution. In this competitive dimension, the core team of Cardiolink Science consists of industry veterans in the field of vascular intervention, with extensive experience in the commercialization of medical devices. Members of the core team have served as senior executives in several industry-leading companies, and their professional expertise spans multiple sectors such as cardiac electrophysiology, neurointervention, peripheral intervention, and cardiac rhythm management, successfully leading the commercialization of various products. These successes are replicable. Regarding interventional therapy, coronary intervention was the earliest field to enter interventional treatment, and the operation of tumor intervention is also moving towards a coronary-like direction. For the Cardiolink Science team, their previous experience in coronary, neuro, and peripheral fields can be quickly replicated into the commercialization of tumor intervention products.

In addition to the industry veterans, the new generation of talents in the Cardiolink Science team has also demonstrated a strong sense of responsibility and mission. 2022 was a critical period for the registration of Cardiolink Science's microsphere products. At that time, the changing pandemic situation in various regions significantly impacted clinical project completion and data collection. In the face of these challenges, the young team did not give up but actively responded, leaving a deep impression on founder Che Haibo.

Che HaiBo said, "We have always hoped to attract truly pragmatic and execution-focused talents from the industry to join our team. The team's sense of mission and responsibility is our greatest asset, and this has been the cornerstone of our past success in achieving goals efficiently and will be key to our future commercial success."

For Cardiolink Science, the commercialization of the oncology interventional pipeline is not the endpoint. Cardiolink Science is still in a continuous process of breakthrough and transformation.

From a longer-term strategic perspective, the integration of tumor interventional therapy with targeted immunotherapy drugs, genetic engineering, and tumor gene therapy technologies, as well as with other minimally invasive techniques and surgical operations, to establish the optimal minimally invasive treatment model for single diseases (tumors), represents the future direction of development.

The first phase of Cardiolink Science's development was identifying therapies and building solution dimensions for products in the two fields of tumor intervention and renal dialysis access. In the second phase, Cardiolink Science has positioned itself in combining tumor interventional treatment with targeted immunotherapy drugs, transitioning from a traditional product-based company to one that provides therapies. In the third phase, Cardiolink Science aims to establish an entire ecosystem of solutions.

The gene of continuous breakthrough in Cardiolink Science aligns with the characteristics of its founder.

Throughout his career, Che Haibo has continuously broken through existing achievements. The sense of mission from his medical background and curiosity about the industry have always driven him to explore new fields. He stated, "The entrepreneurial journey evokes mixed feelings, but there is always a sense of mission driving me forward to solve problems in the industry. I also prefer to draw strength from successful milestones."

Pessimists are always right, optimists always move forward, and the real challenge is how to move forward correctly. In the seven years since its establishment, Cardiolink Science has continuously advanced and made leaps forward, with its forward-looking strategies being validated by the market multiple times. Having initiated comprehensive tumor interventional solutions, Cardiolink Science has already begun to explore the next blue ocean market. It is believed that in the near future, Cardiolink Science will bring more innovative achievements to the industry.