Zhongkang Technology VP Guo Xiaoyun on iMDT: Reconstructing Critical Disease Care through Standardized, Efficient, and Closed-loop Intelligent MDT

The majority of costs for academic conferences are spent on travel and venue rentals; physicians are exhausted from rushing between various social-oriented meetings; yet well-organized academic conferences attract only a handful of attendees. On the other hand, physicians lack guidance on practical clinical issues, while critically ill patients feel overwhelmed by the complex array of medical departments, leaving them confused and unable to access appropriate care. How can pharmaceutical companies, physicians, and patients achieve a win-win outcome that aligns their respective value propositions? Has the time come to reconstruct academic promotion and value delivery in the pharmaceutical industry? And where should it head next?

Zhongkang Technology's answer is:Everything Returns to Clinical Practice and Patient Value. This company, which excels in medical AI and big data, has chosen not to develop large language models or general-purpose tools. Instead, it has anchored its strategy in the niche scenario of “clinical multidisciplinary teams (MDT)” by launching the iMDT Digital Intelligence Platform. The platform aims to deeply integrate pharmaceutical companies’ academic needs, physicians’ professional development aspirations, and patients’ treatment plans into real-world clinical decision-making processes, thereby constructing a more efficient, standardized, and sustainable value loop.

Against this backdrop, VCBeat held a dialogue with Guo Xiaoyun, Vice President of Zhongkang Technology, seeking to clarify: How does iMDT address the industry’s widespread anxieties? And how will it reshape collaboration across the future pharmaceutical value chain?

VCBeat: What industry observations and opportunities led Zhongkang to enter the pharmaceutical digital services market through intelligent MDT?

Guo Xiaoyun: When we decided to enter this market, it was a time when the anti-corruption campaign in the healthcare sector was deepening, and digital technologies were emerging. We conducted some research and found many irrational aspects in this market. Pharmaceutical companies invest heavily in marketing expenses for drug sales, resulting in extremely low cost-effectiveness and compliance risks. These funds could actually be used to build a more scientific healthcare system, benefiting both doctors and patients, without conflicting with the academic promotion efforts of pharmaceutical companies. Therefore, we believe the industry needs to break through traditional models of physician education and find an innovative approach that meets the needs of pharmaceutical companies while creating value for doctors and patients.

At the time, we observed three clear signals: First, various data indicated rapid growth in digital marketing, with increasing physician engagement. The emergence of publicly listed companies in this sector further validated that it was a market with “genuine demand.” Second, although there were many players in the digital services space, the market remained dominated by offline conferences and promotion by pharmaceutical sales representatives. Most digital health companies operated on a “To VC” model, with few having established truly profitable business models. Third, the approval pace for innovative drugs in China was accelerating, and the commercialization environment for new drugs was improving, leading to growing demand for novel digital solutions. Therefore, we believed the timing was ripe.

VCBeat: Among the many digital entry points, why was clinical MDT ultimately chosen as the core model?

Guo Xiaoyun: Our team has repeatedly discussed this issue. In the realm of medical media or content platforms, the market already has established players, with mature competitors boasting over two decades of experience leading the way. As for developing tools, it is difficult to demonstrate cumulative effects, and challenging to simultaneously meet the core needs of physicians, patients, and pharmaceutical companies.

We are looking for a“A Win-Win-Win for All Three Parties”—the path is neither for traffic nor for tool efficiency per se, but rather to deeply integrate pharmaceutical companies’ academic promotion needs with physicians’ diagnostic and treatment needs and patients’ therapeutic outcomes.

MDT has become highly mature in the field of critical illnesses abroad, with MDT coverage rates among cancer patients in Europe and America reaching 50%–70%, whereas in China it remains below 1%. More critically, most MDT programs currently available are predominantly “academic discussion-oriented,” with very few genuinely focused on clinical decision-making for individual patients.

We believe that integrating patient value, physician needs, and pharmaceutical companies’ compliant promotion into a single multidisciplinary team (MDT) scenario would create a market characterized by both clear gaps and rigid demand.

VCBeat: Within the triangle of pharmaceutical companies, physicians, and patients, who do you believe is the core hub driving this model? How is the business model constructed?

Guo Xiaoyun: It is undoubtedly the physicians. Patients have very limited awareness of critical illnesses, which they may encounter only once in their lifetime; in most cases, they must rely on physicians’ judgments. Furthermore, when pharmaceutical companies conduct academic activities, their success essentially depends on physicians’ endorsement. All our product designs are centered around physicians, including helping them save time, enhancing their diagnostic and treatment capabilities, improving patient retention, and accumulating research materials. Once physicians perceive that “this platform is useful to me,” patients and pharmaceutical companies will naturally follow suit.

From a business model perspective, pharmaceutical companies allocate a portion of their medical education budgets to iMDT platforms to support clinical case discussions in relevant therapeutic areas. This is not traditional “conference sponsorship,” but rather payment for a high-quality collaborative diagnosis and treatment workflow. In this process, pharmaceutical companies’ medical evidence can be integrated more naturally and contextually into real-time multidisciplinary expert discussions, directly influencing diagnostic and treatment decision-making. Physicians receive professional collaboration tools and academic support free of charge, while patients benefit from more standardized treatment plans at no cost. This represents a multi-party win-win model based on value creation rather than mere exposure.

VCBeat: Traditional multidisciplinary teams (MDTs) face significant implementation challenges, such as difficulties in coordination, lengthy preparation times, and weak follow-up. How does Zhongkang Technology’s iMDT digital-intelligence platform address these pain points?

Guo Xiaoyun: We spent three to four years refining our product. In terms of the iMDT product, we essentially focused on four core initiatives.

First,Efficiency Enhancement, reducing the time doctors spend creating case presentation slides from half a day to 15–30 minutes through AI. Second,Process Standardization, standardize the logic of case presentations to avoid inconsistent reporting by different physicians and improve discussion efficiency. Thirdly,Data Closed Loop, ensure compliant retention of case data, and leverage AI in conjunction with the operations team to conduct follow-ups, enabling leading physicians to observe the real-world implementation outcomes of their treatment plans. The fourth aspect isRemote Collaboration, enabling high-fidelity remote imaging review and discussion, breaking geographical barriers, and truly addressing collaboration challenges in cross-hospital MDT.

Many people say, “Tencent Meeting can also be used for MDT.” However, conferencing tools only solve the issue of “connectivity.” The essence of MDT is not merely holding a meeting; its fundamental value lies inClinical Decision-Making and Whole-Course Disease Management, this is not something a meeting tool can accomplish.

VCBeat: After addressing the issue of tool efficiency, how can we encourage doctors, especially those at the primary care level, to continue using and integrating into this ecosystem?

Guo Xiaoyun: Instrumental value is merely the entry point. We place great emphasis on design.Progressive, Low-Barrier Participation Pathway, with no rigid barriers. For primary care physicians, if they can clearly articulate case details and implement protocols from higher-level institutions, they may take a leading role in participation; if their competencies are still developing, they may initially join as “learners,” enhancing their skills through observation of real-world case discussions.

More importantly, by operating the “MDT Alliance,” we have built a sustainable collaborative network. We consistently convey a key concept: iMDT is not about “upward referral” of patients, but rather about enabling primary care physicians to “retain patients locally” with the support of expert teams. Through real-time guidance and treatment plan endorsement from senior specialists, primary care physicians gain technical support and patient trust, thereby enhancing local diagnostic and therapeutic capabilities as well as patient retention rates.

VCBeat: What is the current implementation status of the iMDT platform? How have physicians, patients, and pharmaceutical companies responded?

Guo Xiaoyun: The platform has cumulatively conducted over 2,000 multidisciplinary team (MDT) sessions. Behind this figure lies the deep engagement of hundreds of hospitals and thousands of physicians. The core reason for the positive feedback from physicians is their “sense of value”: each discussion centers on real, specific patients, their opinions directly influence treatment decisions, and they can observe subsequent outcomes through follow-up. This differs fundamentally from traditional academic conferences, which are often repetitive and one-directional.

For patients, the greatest value lies in receiving standardized multidisciplinary treatment plans without incurring additional costs. Collaborative decision-making by multiple physicians inherently reduces biases associated with a single perspective, resulting in more objective and scientifically robust treatment strategies. To date, over 5,000 patients have received care through iMDT, expanding the coverage of standardized treatment; this number continues to grow rapidly alongside the expansion of the alliance.

For pharmaceutical companies, this has translated into a tangible improvement in the efficiency of fund utilization. Budgets have shifted from subsidizing indirect costs, such as travel and venue expenses, to directly supporting high-quality diagnostic and treatment collaboration processes. This enables medical evidence to be naturally validated and discussed within the most impactful clinical decision-making scenarios, while providing visibility into the number of patients and physicians benefited, thereby establishing a closed-loop feedback mechanism. In collaborations with multinational corporations (MNCs) and leading domestic pharmaceutical enterprises, the commercial value of the iMDT model has gradually become evident. Taking one collaborative project as an example, after three years of development, its scope has expanded from a single cancer type to multiple therapeutic areas, evolving from an initial innovative pilot into a routine market program. Furthermore, research findings based on the accumulated case data have been presented at international academic conferences.

VCBeat: Based on the practice of iMDT, how do you view the evolving relationship among future physician education, pharmaceutical commercialization, and digital services?

Guo Xiaoyun: The pharmaceutical digitalization industry will undergo disruptive changes. In the past, physician education was essentially “heavy on social interaction, light on content,” with substantial resources consumed in non-core areas. In the future, pharmaceutical companies must improve the efficiency of their funding utilization and focus more intently on content that genuinely enhances physicians’ clinical capabilities.

The more profound change lies in the fact that the traditional linear information dissemination model of “pharmaceutical companies → service providers → physicians → patients” is becoming ineffective. AI and technology are rapidly bridging the information gap, enabling primary care physicians to no longer rely solely on specialists’ interpretations, while patients also gain access to a broader base of knowledge.

Therefore, I believe that the future model will bePlatform-based, shared, evidence from pharmaceutical companies, clinical experience of physicians, and patient conditions can interact more efficiently and transparently on digital platforms, reducing information asymmetry and rent-seeking opportunities, enabling all parties to focus more on their core values, and ultimately working together to improve patient treatment outcomes.

VCBeat: Under this trend, what is the core competitive barrier of Sinohealth Technology?

Guo Xiaoyun: Technology and computing power are easily accessible; the true barrier lies inAccumulation of High-Quality Clinical Data and Establishment of a Pioneer Ecosystem. Zhongkang itself possesses a deep data-driven DNA; we consistently focus on whether our work can accumulate into reusable and iterable data assets.

Through iMDT, we have accumulated structured full-course data for thousands of critically ill patients and vast amounts of physician behavior data. This is not something that can be quickly achieved by burning capital; rather, it is the result of “heavy lifting” accumulated through deep cooperation with individual hospitals and departments. These data continuously feed back into model optimization, forming a self-reinforcing closed loop. Meanwhile, MDT represents a niche market that requires deep trust and collaborative professional development. Our early investments have established an extensive physician network and brand recognition, meaning latecomers would face prohibitively high costs in terms of time and building trust.

VCBeat: Beneath the moat, what are the key technological breakthroughs and market deployment priorities for Zhongkang’s iMDT platform in its next phase?

Guo Xiaoyun: Technologically, we will focus on two directions. First,Precision in AI-Assisted Diagnosis and Treatment. Upon inputting patient case data, the system not only integrates the latest clinical guidelines but also accounts for physicians’ diagnostic and treatment preferences, thereby recommending management plans and similar cases that more closely align with real-world clinical decision-making. Second,Dynamic Guidance System. By continuously accumulating real-world data, diagnostic and treatment recommendations can be updated and iterated in near real-time, breaking through the limitation of traditional guidelines that are “updated once a year.”

In the market, iMDT will continue to deepen its development by focusing on critical and rare diseases, with primary coverage of secondary and tertiary hospitals. Once the physician network and capabilities have matured to a certain stage, we will open patient-side access, enabling patients with critical illnesses to directly request multidisciplinary team (MDT) consultations on the platform. This will truly close the loop among “physicians–patients–data,” thereby extending the reach of the platform’s value.

VCBeat: If you were to summarize it in one sentence, what is the ultimate vision of Zhongkang iMDT?

Guo Xiaoyun: The mission that Sinohealth has always adhered to is"Smart Health Industry, Smart Healthy Living", the IMDT team’s mission also aligns with the Group’s overarching mission: to ensure that every patient receives scientifically grounded diagnosis and treatment.

Physician education is merely a phased entry point; what we hope to achieve through our efforts is to drive more peers to jointly improve the current landscape of clinical diagnosis and treatment—Make MDT the Standard Approach for Diagnosing and Treating Critical Illnesses, making iMDT the preferred platform for implementing MDT. When patients and physicians immediately think of and effectively utilize MDT in the face of critical illnesses, I believe that is when we have truly succeeded.