Vishbop Targets the Pediatric Myopia Control Digital Health Market with Innovative Sensor-Embedded Eyewear and AI-Driven Solutions

During the 2022 Two Sessions, visual health was mentioned multiple times. The National Health Commission issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for National Eye Health in China (2021-2025)," proposing to further build a high-quality and efficient eye health service system. National visual health has risen to the level of strategic national concern, and it is important to manage the entire process and lifecycle of eye disease prevention and treatment at all levels. Among these efforts, children and adolescents' visual health is a crucial component in building national visual health.

According to the data released in the 2021 "China Eye Health" White Paper, the overall myopia rate among children and adolescents in China reached 52.7% in 2021. As grade levels increase, myopia worsens, with the myopia rates of junior high and high school students rising to over 70% and 80%, respectively. The proportion of high myopia (above 600 degrees) is as high as 17.6%. It is estimated that the total number of myopic teenagers aged 8 to 18 in China has reached 105 million.

Three Major Trends in Myopia Among Chinese Children and Adolescents: Increasingly Younger Age, Faster Progression of Myopia, and a Growing Proportion of Children with High MyopiaThe occurrence and harm of myopia are irreversible, and high myopia can lead to blindness-causing eye diseases such as cataracts, retinal detachment, macular hemorrhage, and glaucoma.For children and adolescents, myopia is far more complicated than simply "wearing a pair of glasses."

Currently, effective means for myopia prevention and control in children and adolescents include low-concentration atropine, orthokeratology lenses, and multi-functional defocus lenses, all of which are used to slow down myopia progression after its onset. So, is there a method that can not only delay and control myopia progression after its onset but also effectively reduce the incidence of myopia and achieve prevention before myopia develops?

As Hainan released the "Several Measures to Accelerate the Development of the Digital Therapeutics Industry in Hainan Province" in October last year, which outlined specific details for the development of Hainan's digital therapeutics industry, a digital therapeutic approach focused on myopia prevention and control may provide answers...

In March 2022, Vishbop was founded in Beijing, just one month after Zhao Xinlei had left his previous job.

Zhao Xinlei and Luo Ming met at an internet healthcare startup company in late 2021. Upon their first meeting, both opposed the launch of a certain business operation within the company. Due to differing views on the company’s business development and corporate culture, along with their shared understanding of the medical field, the two decided to start their own venture just months after meeting. "One who lacks the virtue akin to Buddha cannot be a doctor; one who lacks the talent akin to a celestial being cannot be a doctor. This is our perception of medicine and also the bottom line of our entrepreneurship," Zhao Xinlei said.

The story of Zhao Xinlei begins in the early 21st century. In 2000, Zhao Xinlei, who had dropped out of university, took over an internet café in Jilin and entered this industry that he had been passionate about since the age of 8. With the continuous popularization of computer technology, the internet café industry gradually declined, and Zhao Xinlei was no longer satisfied with just working in a peripheral field of computers.

Vishbop Founder and CEO, Zhao Xinlei

In fact, starting from 1998, Zhao Xinlei was exposed to the Linux system and developed a strong interest in this operating system. After selling his internet café, Zhao Xinlei, leveraging his knowledge of computer technology, became a lecturer at a private college and subsequently worked for companies such as Sina. From 2002 to 2008, Zhao Xinlei deepened his understanding of the Linux system and participated in the development of the Linux community distribution, MagicLinux.

In 2010, Zhao Xinlei received an offer from Alibaba and began working there. Five years later, Zhao Xinlei, as a serial entrepreneur, founded three companies in succession, two of which were acquired by leading enterprises.

Talking about Zhao Xinlei's crossover from technology to healthcare, one cannot overlook the precision medicine popular science platform, Baike Mingyi, founded by Zhao as CTO. "The work of medical popularization has broadened and deepened my understanding of medicine, sparking my interest in this industry," Zhao Xinlei said. Reviewing his career over the years, Zhao Xinlei has been involved in various technical development roles in both hardware and software within the internet sector. After meeting his business partner Luo Ming, he gained the confidence to venture into a new field.

Luo Ming's story is very simple to tell, yet it is filled with more than twenty years of his hard work and sweat. In 1998, after graduating from the Liaoning University of Traditional Chinese Medicine with a major in orthopedic injuries, he switched careers to work in medical equipment sales and marketing. In 2004, he joined the multinational company GE, mainly responsible for the sales and marketing of monitoring and ECG products. During this time, he was assigned to challenging regions four times to expand the market territory, rising from an obscure grassroots employee to become a key player in GE's LCS department.

Vishbop Founder, CMO Luo Ming

Nothing is easy,With 12 years of experience in the medical device market, Luo Ming has an in-depth understanding of the dynamics in the medical market. In 2012, after leaving GE, Luo Ming began a series of entrepreneurial ventures, focusing on internet healthcare, regional healthcare, tiered diagnosis and treatment platform construction, localized operations, and wearable medical devices. Luo Ming’s entrepreneurial scope was extremely broad, but after meeting Zhao Xinlei, he resolved to fully commit to developing truly transformative technology.

Zhao Xinlei and Luo Ming, who hit it off immediately, founded Vishbop, a digital medical service company focusing on myopia prevention and control, just over a month after leaving the enterprise where they had worked together. "There are two types of talents that a start-up needs to recruit: product development and marketing. Our areas of expertise happen to complement each other," said Luo Ming.

Shifting the Focus of Myopia Prevention and Control in Children and Adolescents: Early Monitoring, Early Detection, Early Warning, and Early Intervention to Strengthen Vision Health Checks for Young People. The shift from "treatment" to "prevention" has sparked a wave of "reshaping" in the eye health sector, with countless "new players" entering the field and various myopia prevention and control solutions being proposed.

Myopia in children and adolescents is mainly influenced by genetics andAcquired Eye Habits and Environmental FactorsThe latter is the main factor that accelerates the progression of myopia in adolescents. Scientific experiments have proven that there are five main factors contributing to the onset and development of acquired myopia:Eye distance, eye duration, eye angle, reading environment illumination, and outdoor effective exposure duration。

So far, there are few effective methods on the market for accurately monitoring and reflecting individual patients' eye-use habits and environment. Most intervention plans are still based on subjective feedback scales from parents, making it difficult to prevent and effectively delay or control the development of vision problems in children and adolescents.

Hainan Eye Hospital of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, is independently operated and managed by the Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center of Sun Yat-sen University. It is the only public, non-profit eye specialty hospital in Hainan Province. In October last year, Hainan Province released several details on digital therapeutics.The hospital has been listed as a clinical trial center for digital therapeutics in ophthalmology.

December 2022, Vishbop has reached a cooperation with Hainan Eye Hospital of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University. The hospital will participate in the entire R&D trial process, while Vishbop will be responsible for execution. Together, they will build a brand-new digital health service system for myopia prevention and control. This includesCreate high-precision sensor 3D printed eyeglass frames, collect and record multiple eye-use data, establish an eye health big data center through multiple processes., using means such as microelectronics, artificial intelligence, and information technology, to assist doctors in finding medical clues,To formulate effective strategies for preventing myopia and controlling its rapid progression in patients.

Vishbop proposes to create 3D customized eyeglass frames based on 3D facial scanning, which can adapt to individual differentiated needs, ensure wearing comfort, and accurately collect eye usage habits and environmental data. The eyeglass frame is expected to be equipped with a dual-distance sensor with a range of 4 meters, an acceleration sensor, an angular velocity sensor, an ambient light spectrum sensor, an eye movement sensor, and an eye-to-lens distance sensor, etc., to precisely collect multi-dimensional data such as reading distance, reading tilt degree, motion status, ambient light brightness and intensity, duration of eye use, indoor and outdoor duration, and eye-to-lens distance. This product is currently in the process of applying for a patent.

Vishbop will also develop a vision prevention and healthcare APP for uploading and analyzing eye usage data, evaluating myopia-contributing factors such as eye-use habits, environment, and duration, and providing a comprehensive assessment of myopia progression in conjunction with other physical conditions. Additionally, to meet national requirements for children and adolescents' vision health records, Vishbop will collaborate with Hainan Eye Hospital of Zhongshan Ophthalmic Center, Sun Yat-sen University, to establish a big data center for eye health, enabling data aggregation, processing, and analysis to provide a basis for clinicians to issue electronic prescriptions. This aims to achieve the goal of preventing, delaying, and controlling myopia progression among children and adolescents.

China's severe myopia prevention and control situation, as well as the resulting demand for myopia prevention and control, is shaping a new track in the field of eye health — optometry. For Vishbop, which has just entered the track,Repeating ready-made things is not difficult, but minor creations are not easy.。

"The market is like a battlefield. To design a good product that meets market demands, it is necessary to understand market needs and industry development trends. As a startup, Vishbop entered a completely new field, and its initial development was extremely challenging.""Not until we received help from 'GE ex-colleagues', who introduced us to more than thirty institutions in the industry, did we gradually get out of the misunderstanding after contacting them one by one," said Luo Ming. With a clear direction, both Luo Ming and Zhao Xinlei were highly motivated. In October, as soon as Hainan released its policy on digital therapeutics, Luo Ming immediately flew to Hainan to seek cooperation, while Zhao Xinlei continued to work hard on the R&D front line.

Starting from vision, Vishbop's digital therapeutics chapter goes beyond this.Some diseases in children can develop to a severe degree that causes disability, classified as:There are seven types of disabilities: visual, hearing, speech, physical, intellectual, mental, and multiple disabilities. According to Luo Ming and Zhao Xinlei's assessment, visual, hearing, speech, physical, and mental (psychological) disabilities can all be addressed through digital therapeutics.Effective intervention,These细分赛道also have numerous digital therapy enterprises布局. In the future, Vishbop will also gradually布局in these赛道, which is also Vishbop's（Vishbop：Vision、Speech、Hearing、Body、Psychiatry）The meaning of the question.

At present, with the further development of the company and the expansion of the team, Vishbop also plans to seek support from the capital market to rapidly promote the implementation of digital health services for myopia prevention and control in children and adolescents.