From Big Tech Grassroots to Billion-Dollar Founder: Wei Tian Pioneers AI-Driven Clinical Research Platform

Wei Tian, who is known for her swift and decisive actions, leaves a deep impression.

At the “2024 VBEF Future Healthcare Ecosystem Expo – Internet Hospital and Smart Hospital Forum” held on the morning of May 9, each speaker was allotted 20 minutes. Wei Tian delivered the shortest presentation, conveying her insights and practical experiences in internet healthcare and digital-intelligent medical research services with high density and clear logic in just over ten minutes. After her talk, many attendees, eager for more, flocked to connect with her.

Wei Tian is currently the Founder and CEO of WeiTongYiZhe. Established in Tianjin in 2022, WeiTongYiZhe has developed a core business model centered on health services and driven by medical research, providing personalized and precise healthcare services to patients while vigorously promoting the in-depth development of medical scientific research.

Currently, the WeiTongYiZhe integrated platform for digital intelligence research has attracted nearly 200,000 medical experts, providing them with high-quality digital intelligence services for scientific research and academic pursuits. Additionally, by leveraging large language models, WeiTongYiZhe delivers patient education and personalized health management services to tens of thousands of patients. 

Before founding WeiTong YiZhe, Wei Tian served as an executive at several major domestic and international pharmaceutical companies and large healthcare technology enterprises. Recalling her journey from entry-level positions to entrepreneurship—spanning roles at Sinopharm, the oncology big data company LinkDoc Technology, and a leading Chinese pharmaceutical firm—she noted that this path honed her practical expertise and exceptional operational execution capabilities. Meanwhile, the management philosophies of the senior entrepreneurs at the companies she served have subtly influenced her own management style.

Wei Tian shared a brief anecdote from her time at Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals. It was her first report to Chairman Sun Piaoyang, for which she had spent over a month meticulously preparing the presentation slides. However, on the day of the report, Chairman Sun took a highly pragmatic approach, stating, “There’s actually no need to go through the PPT. Just tell me what you need me to do and what resources are required—I’ll coordinate them immediately and drive progress right here on the spot.”

This efficient, pragmatic entrepreneurial spirit has also profoundly influenced Wei Tian. Wei Tian frankly admits that she is not fond of meetings; her team holds work planning sessions only once a month, primarily to clarify members’ responsibilities and thereby provide resource support and assistance. “We need to be more pragmatic in our approach, focusing our time and energy on the market and customers,” said Wei Tian.

With such a team culture, WeiTongYiZhe also possesses strong capabilities in management decision-making and project operations. Currently, WeiTongYiZhe has teams in Tianjin, Shanghai, and Northwest China, with a total staff of over 100 people.

Her extensive professional experience has enabled Wei Tian to observe the evolution of China’s pharmaceutical policy environment, internet healthcare, and clinical research services from multiple perspectives and dimensions.

In her speech, she emphasized the importance of applying advanced technologies, stating that the adoption of cutting-edge technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and AI is driving clinical trials toward digitalization, intelligence, and greater efficiency. This not only enhances the quality and efficiency of clinical trial research while reducing costs, but also better meets clinical needs and benefits patients.

By following the same approach and integrating the latest AI technologies to drive continuous digital iteration and upgrades, the company has established multiple business lines: pre-market digital CRO services, post-market digital real-world studies, and medical value-added services. Wei Tian revealed thatAlthough Tongyi Zhe was established only recently, its solid service delivery and the trust of its customer base have enabled the company to develop mature self-sustaining capabilities and profitability.

Established just over two years ago, WeiTongYiZhe has been honored with the “Future Healthcare Top 100 Innovation Award – Company of the Year with High Potential,” a testament to its exceptional innovation capabilities and substantial market potential, which clearly underscore its technological strength and innovative prowess.

Currently, Weiyitongzhe has established three core products and services: a digital clinical research platform, the “Unimind Gezhi-GPT” large language model, and precision subject recruitment services.

Specifically, in terms of research support, the integrated digital-intelligent platform for clinical research developed by Weiyi Yizhe provides one-stop services to medical researchers, enhancing both the efficiency and quality of scientific research. Meanwhile, leveraging its user base of hundreds of thousands of healthcare professionals and patients, the platform’s subject recruitment system can identify eligible target populations from a vast pool of potential participants, significantly improving screening efficiency and accuracy, thereby providing substantial support for the development of innovative drugs.

Furthermore, Weiyi Tongzhe also leverages its self-developed “Unimind Gezhi-GPT” large language model to provide more convenient diagnostic and treatment references for primary care physicians, as well as relevant prognosis management recommendations for patients. Weiyi Tongzhe has completed the development of its large language models in three major fields: lung cancer, mental disorders, and diabetes.

In her speech, Wei Tian provided a detailed introduction to the business model of WeiTong YiZhe, namely“1+2+3+4” Shifang Model.Centered on patients, adhering to scientific and ethical standards, strengthening technical, team, and platform support, and ensuring data integrity, quality control, regulatory compliance, and safety safeguards, clinical trials have established a comprehensive, systematic, and efficient pyramid-shaped shared digital-intelligent research model. This model enhances the quality and efficiency of clinical trials, driving progress and development in medical scientific research.

AI technology not only enhances the efficiency of clinical trials but also significantly shortens the time required to bring drugs from the laboratory to the market, while ensuring safety. The underlying approach involves leveraging advanced technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing to help researchers more rapidly identify potential trial participants, optimize trial design, and monitor and analyze trial data in real time, thereby providing support across all stages of clinical trials.

Wei Tian stated that traditional post-marketing real-world study processes are lengthy, with startup times potentially taking up to a year. However, with the support of AI and other technologies,The AI-driven digital intelligence research platform integrates the entire one-stop research workflow—from trial design, project management, and patient recruitment to clinical data quality control, statistical analysis, and result reporting—significantly shortening trial duration.

In a drug study based on real-world clinical data, the consistent approach is to rely on offline physical hospitals and online internet hospitals to achieve full-process management both inside and outside the hospital, and to leverage an AI-driven digital intelligence research platform to refine patient management and enhance the completeness and accuracy of research data.

Currently, Wei Tong Yi Zhe focuses onLung Cancer, Mental Illness, DiabetesThree major disease categories have yielded a vast amount of high-quality medical data. These data will serve as a premium training database for its large model products, thereby enabling the development of medical large models with higher accuracy and greater reliability.

Wei Tian stated bluntly that, at present, clinical drug trials in China are primarily conducted in tertiary hospitals with abundant medical resources. On one hand, the number and scope of enrolled subjects are insufficient; on the other hand, primary healthcare institutions and clinicians lack relevant research experience, and their medical technical capabilities need improvement.

“Primary healthcare institutions have significant advantages in the management of chronic diseases such as diabetes, and they serve a substantial patient base. These institutions should be encouraged to participate in clinical drug trials, which will also help improve the standardization of diagnosis and treatment and enhance the research capabilities of primary care physicians.”“Wei Tian revealed that once the large language model has been fully trained and matured, Weiyitongche will also actively promote the integration of clinical trials into primary care settings, enabling primary care physicians to stay abreast of the latest treatment modalities.”

Wei Tian concluded by stating that, moving forward, WeiTongYiZhe will increase its technological investments while strengthening compliance research in clinical trials, continuously providing users with higher-quality, more efficient, and more convenient healthcare services.