VB100 Smart Lab Forum: Unlocking the Trillion-Yuan Market for Intelligent Medical Laboratories

Mar 28, 2023 15:00 CST Updated 15:00

The advancement of digitalization and automation technologies is gradually driving transformation in the healthcare industry. Meanwhile, every segment of the healthcare value chain is being reshaped by these technologies, giving rise to new demands and opportunities, with laboratories serving as a key setting for this transformation.

On January 1, 2022, the newly revised Law on Progress in Science and Technology officially came into effect. For the first time, national laboratories were explicitly identified as a key component of China’s strategic scientific and technological capabilities, with requirements to establish and improve a laboratory system led by national laboratories and supported by national key laboratories, as well as to enhance mechanisms for stable funding support. A nationwide surge in laboratory construction ensued. As of April 2022, nearly 100 “provincial laboratories” across China had either been officially unveiled or had initiated their preparatory establishment.

Meanwhile, with the advancement of biotechnology and the normalization of pandemic control measures, market demand for drug development, biological experiments, and testing services has surged. Smart laboratories, leveraging 5G, the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and big data technologies, are quietly undergoing a transformation. In 2020, China’s pharmaceutical industry output reached RMB 4 trillion, with R&D expenditures accounting for approximately 20%. Of this, spending on data management, laboratory standardization, and intelligent R&D constituted 10% of total R&D expenditure, indicating that the smart laboratory market size could reach hundreds of billions of yuan.

Against this backdrop, the Top 100 Conference has specially establishedSmart Laboratory Forum,To understand the current state of development and challenges facing China’s smart laboratory sector, and to identify growth opportunities, this forum will invite seasoned investors, industry-leading enterprises, and innovative entrepreneurs to jointly explore visions for “lights-out laboratories” and the challenges associated with their current development.

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I.Forum Highlights:

(I)Future Outlook: Broad Prospects—How Far Off Is the Future of Smart Laboratories?

From a medical perspective, the penetration rate of smart technologies in medical laboratories remains below 20%, leaving a market worth over RMB 100 billion yet to be tapped. Estimates indicate that the smart medical laboratory sector holds an untapped market exceeding RMB 100 billion, offering broad prospects. The intensity of capital investment serves as the most direct reflection of industry热度 (hotness). A review of institutions that have invested in the laboratory automation industry over the past two years reveals a roster of prominent venture capital firms and strategic investors, including Sequoia China, Hillhouse Ventures, IDG Capital, Qiming Venture Partners, Northern Light Venture Capital, Sinovation Ventures, Matrix Partners China, ByteDance, and Shunwei Capital. This lineup includes not only TMT-focused funds but also pharmaceutical industry funds, as well as industry leaders from sectors such as CXO (WuXi AppTec), biochemical analyzers (PerkinElmer), and automation (Bosch), all of whom have detected significant opportunities. Compared to the internet healthcare and artificial intelligence sectors, which attracted tens of billions in frenzied investment over the past year, investment in smart laboratories has been more rational, yet also more long-term oriented. This forum will invite seasoned investors and leading enterprises to jointly explore visions for “lights-out laboratories” and discuss the challenges facing their current development.

(2)Combining Soft and Hard Approaches: Smart Laboratories Advancing Toward Automation, Digitalization, and Intelligence

The outbreak and persistence of the COVID-19 pandemic have drawn public attention to medical laboratories. The heavy testing workload, prolonged turnaround times, the existence of false-positive (or false-negative) results, and the potential risk of intra-laboratory transmission have gradually made laboratory automation a prominent topic in China. It is reported that there are currently more than 1,000 automated laboratory testing lines installed across China, with annual installationsGrowing at a rate of over 300 units, the market is poised to reach hundreds of billions. In the process of intelligent transformation, software and hardware facilitate more convenient and efficient operations in medical laboratories at various stages, while also enhancing safety and compliance. Among these, integrated software-hardware solutions are particularly attractive to laboratory managers due to their broader coverage of intelligence and deeper resolution of operational needs. Terms such as “Future Laboratory,” “Lights-Out Laboratory,” and “Smart Laboratory” have become industry buzzwords in recent years, clearly indicating that scientific instruments are steadily advancing toward innovations characterized by intelligent management, automated operation, and fully unmanned processes. So, what new changes will smart laboratories bring? This forum will invite innovative companies such as Hansundi to showcase and share their insights.

(3)Value Linkage: How the Industrial Chain Collaborates to Promote the Construction and Development of Smart Laboratories

China's smart medical laboratories are still in a very early stage, with significant untapped market opportunities awaiting enterprises to capture.Collaboration Outweighs Competition. For laboratories, once a smart laboratory construction service is selected, the switching costs for both hardware equipment and software applications are relatively high. Therefore, laboratory managers always aspire to achieve a “one-step” comprehensive solution. In such cases, assuming equal quality, providers offering integrated hardware and software solutions hold an obvious advantage over those providing only hardware or software. Furthermore, the smart laboratory sector encompasses broad and deep niche markets. Currently, there is still significant room for growth before the number of enterprises in each niche reaches “saturation,” and companies operating in different niches often develop in “parallel.” Consequently, to better meet end-users’ demand for comprehensive “one-step” solutions and to accelerate market capture, collaboration among early-stage smart laboratory service providers outweighs competition. This forum will invite investors, supply chain platform enterprises, software companies, and hardware/workstation manufacturers—key stakeholders across the industry chain—to engage in intellectual exchange and jointly explore how industrial collaboration can drive the construction and development of smart laboratories.

II.Forum Overview

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