From Swept-Source OCT to Full-Eye Digital Platform: Dr. Li Bing Chronicles Vixi Vision's Innovation Journey

Recently, the "2023 Future Healthcare 100 Strong List," known as a barometer of the medical industry, was officially released. Intalight ranked on the list due to its innovative strength in core technology, product services, and business models."Top 100 Innovative Medical Devices", marking the second consecutive year it has received this honor. At the 2023 Future Healthcare Top 100 Conference's Ophthalmology Industry Innovation Forum held during the same period, Dr. Li Bing, co-founder and CEO of Intalight, delivered a speech."Full-Eye Digital Reconstruction: Empowering the Digital Future of Ophthalmology"The keynote speech told the story of Intalight's technological innovation journey from ophthalmic OCT products to a full-eye digital platform, as well as its future development direction, which aroused a warm response among hundreds of authoritative ophthalmology experts and industry investors present.

Figure 1. Intalight Again Ranks Among the Top 100 in the "Innovative Medical Device Companies List" of Future Healthcare 100

Figure 2. Intalight CEO Dr. Li Bing's Special Speech at the 2023 Future Healthcare Top 100 Conference

Intalight's recent good news doesn't stop here. According to financial data,In 2022, Intalight's sales performance grew more than threefold, with over 100 units sold throughout the year and terminal sales reaching nearly 200 million yuan.; In addition, in the primary market,In early March this year, Intalight announced that it had received another C round of financing of over 300 million yuan., leading capital firms such as China Life Equity, Qianhai Ark, CD Capital, and Shenzhen Capital Group have all completed their investments. In the core markets of Europe and the United States, Intalight recently participated in ARVO 2023, the annual international ophthalmology conference, receiving enthusiastic acclaim from ophthalmologists, master-level experts, and even import brand manufacturers from various countries. Intalight has now established academic partnerships with more than seven of the top ophthalmology centers in the United States.

Figure 3. Intalight's Full-Eye OCT Debuts at ARVO 2023, Receives Acclaim from Many Overseas Top Experts

Behind these honors and significant overseas moves, VCBeat's curiosity about Intalight has grown stronger:What kind of company is this developer, which focuses on the R&D of high-end ophthalmic equipment, and how is it revolutionizing the imagination in the field of ophthalmology? Moreover, who are the driving forces behind it, and what are their stories?To this end, VCBeat andIntalight Co-Founder and CEO, Dr. Li BingA deep conversation was conducted.

Intalight was founded by two American-educated doctors, Peng Xianzhao and Li Bing, in Silicon Valley.Dr. Peng Xianzhao, founder and chairman, was granted admission to the Department of Physics at Peking University as the top scorer in the National Physics Olympiad Competition in Henan Province. In 1997, he obtained his master's degree in optoelectronics from the Institute of Electronics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and later pursued further studies in the United States. In 2001, he earned his Ph.D. in laser spectroscopy from Oregon State University.He once worked at New Focus, an optical company in Silicon Valley, on the research and design of tunable lasers, a core technology for third-generation OCT. He has 22 years of R&D experience in lasers and precision optics in Silicon Valley and holds more than 20 patents domestically and internationally.

Figure 4. Dr. Peng Xianzhao, Founder and Chairman of Intalight

Co-founder and CEO, Dr. Bing LiAlso graduated from Peking University, then went to the University of Virginia for further studies, obtaining a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering in just four years.One of the experts in the fourth batch of the "Central Plains Hundred Talents Plan,"Named one of the top ten "Annual Innovative Entrepreneurs" in the 2022 Future Healthcare 100 list, and awarded the "Ophthalmology Industry Talent" title by the Chinese Medical Equipment Association in 2023.. He is proficient in various medical image analysis algorithms and has collaborated with multiple doctors and biomedical professors from Europe and the United States. He has published 23 papers in international academic journals and conferences, which have been cited over 1000 times. He holds three U.S. patents and has published three sets of medical atlases along with accompanying software.

Figure 5. Dr. Li Bing, Co-founder and CEO of Intalight

"We all want to utilize our strengths, do something different, and truly valuable!" Dr. Li Bing introduced to VCBeat. The establishment of the company stemmed from the two founders' shared optimism about the future development of ophthalmic OCT products. Technically speaking, the application of OCT in the ophthalmology field is the most mature. Moreover, at that time, there was still a gap in the global market for commercial swept-source OCT products. Coupled with the fact that swept-source lasers had gradually entered the market and overall prices began to decrease, the market potential of this technology was expected to expand progressively over the next 4-5 years.

In 2011, Dr. Li Bing, who was working at KLA, the global leader in semiconductor inspection equipment, was sent to Shanghai. There, he quickly established a 30-person algorithm team, bringing the company's core technology back to China for the first time. At that time, Dr. Peng Xianzhao, also working at KLA and highly proficient in the R&D and design of swept-source lasers, had already accumulated extensive technical expertise. The two met at a Peking University Alumni Association event in Silicon Valley and, after in-depth discussions, found a shared vision. They decided to combine their respective strengths to create a China-developed swept-source OCT product. This collaboration led to the founding of Intalight in Silicon Valley in 2014.

In 2015, with the support of national industrial policies, Intalight relocated its headquarters to Luoyang, Henan, and quickly established a research and development operations center in Shanghai.。To date, under the leadership of its two founders, Intalight has attracted a large number of elite talents from top universities both in China and abroad, forming a world-class R&D team with over 20 years of Silicon Valley engineering experience.Dr. Peng Xianzhao focuses on the research, development, and design of ophthalmic diagnostic and treatment products, while Dr. Li Bing is primarily responsible for software and algorithm development, team building, company operations, and project management.Under their leadership, each excelling in their own expertise, Intalight has embarked on a path of逆势增长 (countergrowth) driven by technological innovation in ophthalmic OCT, leading the industry's development.

In March this year, Intalight secured another 300 million yuan in its Series C financing round, with investors includingFocused on the front-line funds in the healthcare sector, such as Guoshou Equity, well-known industrial funds like Qianhai Ark, Shenzhen Capital Group, Huachuang Yida, star institutions concentrating on the medical device track like CD Capital, and funds representing the governments of Henan and Shanghai, such as CICC Huirong and Lingang Blue Bay.。

Discussing why Intalight has attracted so much attention from the capital market in the past two years, Dr. Li Bing mainly attributed the reasons toProductAndMarket ExpansionIn two aspects, and starting from these two key points, VCBeat sees the disruptive nature and imagination of Intalight in the entire ophthalmic device field.

First, let's talk about the product. In 2019, Intalight launchedThe First Swept-Source OCT in China to Receive NMPA Certification, thereby breaking the long-term monopoly of imported products and solving various "bottleneck" technical problems.In 2022, based on the development concept of full-eye OCT and driven by full-eye 3D digital reconstruction, optical digital reconstruction, and blood flow digital reconstruction, Intalight further explored the application of OCT technology. It achieved full-eye visualizable biometry in ophthalmic OCT, creating the world-leading RuYi Full-Eye OCT — a single device capable of fulfilling the reconstruction of full-eye anatomy, optics, and blood flow.

Figure 5. Intalight Full-Eye OCT Technology Product

It is reported that,Intalight's Full-Eye OCT is the world's first system to organically integrate five cutting-edge clinical functions: full-eye axial visualization biometry, anterior segment OCT, posterior segment OCT, anterior segment OCTA, and posterior segment OCTA. It provides a one-stop examination solution for diseases such as retinal disorders, cataracts, refractive errors, and glaucoma.It is worth mentioning that the Intalight Full-Eye OCT not only provides imaging information highly consistent with traditional angiography results, but also targets lesions such as neovascularization in the macular region and non-perfused areas of the retina. Moreover, its resolution and contrast have significantly improved compared to traditional technologies, which undoubtedly...Unveiled the curtain for OCTA to replace traditional angiography, ushering in a new era of non-invasive fundus imaging diagnosis in China.。

Behind each technological and product breakthrough lies Intalight's innovative genes in this field and the team's continuously evolving R&D capabilities.According to Dr. Li Bing, the core members of Intalight are graduates of prestigious universities both in and outside China, and each has deep expertise in their respective fields. Moreover, all of them have worked in Silicon Valley for over a decade, so in terms of R&D concepts and methodologies, Intalight...Following the mature innovation model of Silicon Valley, this has also determined the high level of Intalight's products.。

In addition to a high starting point, the R&D team's ability to innovate and iterate is also crucial. On this point, Dr. Li Bing gave an example, stating that "In 2019, we obtained the first certificate in China, with a scanning depth of 2.7 millimeters at that time. A year later, we increased it to 4.5 millimeters, which was our second-generation technology. Later, we upgraded it to 12 millimeters."This is our current third-generation technology, the FullEye OCT launched in 2022."

While innovation in technology and products is crucial, whether they can be validated by the market still relies on market expansion capabilities for support. In this regard, Intalight has proposed a completely different approach and strategy.

According to Dr. Li Bing, Intalight's market expansion strategy is"High-profile and Aggressive", that is, first occupy the high-end market with high-end products, and then gradually penetrate downwards.. As of now,Intalight's OCT equipment has sold more than 170 units nationwide in China, with over 65 units installed in leading ophthalmic centers and benchmark hospitals across provinces. In over 80% of the TOP 30 ophthalmic centers in China, it has become the main device for clinical and research purposes, and trial units have reached hundreds across the country.. On this basis,Intalight OCT Has Helped Experts in China Publish 71 SCI Papers in International Journals, which indicates that Intalight's products have gained widespread recognition for their clinical research and application value.

 Figure 6. Intalight OCT has been successively installed in Class A tertiary hospitals and eye specialty hospitals across China, with representative hospitals shown in the figure above.

It is precisely because of this that, despite being affected by the pandemic to varying degrees in recent years, Intalight's sales performance has continued to grow against the trend. In 2022, the company sold over 100 units, with terminal sales reaching nearly 200 million yuan, representing more than three times overall growth. However, the future potential for Intalight is not limited to this.

Talking about the financing experience in the past two years, Dr. Li Bing shared an especially interesting phenomenon with VCBeat. He said, "In the past, when raising funds, I basically spent the first half hour popularizing OCT technology to investors. But by 2021, I no longer needed to explain what ophthalmic OCT is. I could directly start by telling investors about our specific advantages.”

The reason why the industry has seen a cognitive iteration in a particular track mainly relies on the innovation of its technology and its excellent performance in the market. In these two aspects, Intalight has already achieved success at present. However, if we were to..."Global Leader in High-End Ophthalmic Devices"In order to achieve this goal, Intalight still needs to continue its efforts.On the one hand, it is to continuously advance towards becoming a platform-based company in the ophthalmology field, and on the other hand, it is to "go global" by replicating the successful experience of the Chinese market internationally.。

According to Dr. Li Bing, with the "Full-eye OCT" technology at its core, combined with advanced AI algorithms and big data capabilities, Intalight will continue to develop on the path of full-eye digital empowerment. CurrentlyHigh-end ophthalmic products covering the diagnosis and treatment of ophthalmology, including retinal diseases, cataracts, glaucoma, corneal diseases, and refractive fields, are currently under development.. It will also make progress in the field of myopia prevention and control for teenagers, including axial length monitoring, choroid monitoring, intelligent rigid lens fitting, etc., and launch a full-eye digital platform at a lower cost.. On this basis, Intalight will also engage in the self-research of some key components in the future, mainly considering the risk of the supply chain being controlled by overseas suppliers.

 Figure 7. Based on the如意全眼OCT technology product, Intalight is building a full-eye digital platform.

"The reason for such a layout, in Dr. Li Bing's view, is mainly that the timing is right. We started with ophthalmic OCT, but as we have accumulated more and more resources in the field of ophthalmology, our team has become increasingly diversified. And after we have taken ophthalmic OCT to a certain level, we will begin to expand into other product directions within ophthalmology."On one hand, we have the technical capability; our team has transitioned from the semiconductor industry to ophthalmology, moving from nanoscale precision to the micrometer-level precision required in ophthalmology — a capability we fully possess. On the other hand, the ophthalmology market is receiving a lot of attention and has high market recognition, so there's no longer a need for us to invest in market education."This will save a lot of costs, so for Intalight, rapid expansion at this time is very economical and also a great opportunity."

Of course, the product will continue to extend towards platformization, and Intalight is also accelerating its expansion into overseas markets. In the past two years, Intalight has frequently appeared and made its voice heard at major international ophthalmology conferences (such as the Rome OCT International Conference, ARVO 2023 in the United States, etc.),Intalight's Full-Eye OCT Product Continues to Attract Attention and Praise from Foreign Experts, at the same time,More than seven of the top U.S. ophthalmology centers with established academic collaborations are proceeding to use this device for diverse ophthalmic research.。It is reported that Intalight willParticipate in some exhibitions in the European and American markets successively, and research cooperation agreements with other top ophthalmic research institutions in Europe and America will also be implemented one after another.。

In fact, unlike other medical device companies in China, Intalight has some specific advantages in "going global." First, Intalight originally started in Silicon Valley, so the innovation team has a certain understanding of the U.S. market and has already accumulated a large amount of corresponding resources; second, Intalight has an office in Silicon Valley, and last year...Introduced Joseph Garibaldi, former Global Commercial Vice President of Optovue, who currently serves as the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of the United States, primarily responsible for leading Intalight's Silicon Valley operations center in the U.S.。

 Figure 8. Intalight's U.S. CCO Joseph Garibaldi (2nd from left) leading the overseas team in a group photo with the domestic marketing team

"Look up at the stars, and keep your feet on the ground!"Just as we gradually grow our domestically developed swept-source OCT products stronger, disrupting the high-end ophthalmic device market in China, with our talent and technological advantages, we will surely and steadily launch more domestically developed, world-leading ophthalmic products."Let advanced Chinese technology products benefit users worldwide!" Dr. Li Bing said.

Building on the existing experience in the commercialization and mass production of swept-source OCT, and relying on its world-class R&D team, Intalight is committed to creating a platform enterprise for full-eye digitization.Benchmarking against globally leading ophthalmic device brands, becoming "China's representative team for global high-end ophthalmic devices"。