Tencent Health Unveils Full-Value-Chain Digital Capability Blueprint for Pharma Industry
Driven by policy incentives, pandemic-induced acceleration, and internal corporate momentum, pharmaceutical and medical device companies have hit the “accelerator” on digital transformation. As digital technologies become deeply embedded in every stage of pharmaceutical R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and services, what paradigm shifts can they bring? On November 15, T-Inspire and the 2022 Tencent Health Smart Medicine Open Day were held in Shanghai, where a digital capability map covering the entire value chain of the pharmaceutical and medical device industry was officially released, further deepening enterprise collaboration.
Participants in the event included Wu Wenda, Vice President of Tencent Health; Zhang Ying, President of Novartis Innovative Medicines (China); Chen Bing, Vice President of AstraZeneca; Bai Liuchen, Vice President of Eli Lilly and Company China; Chen Xi, Head of Digital Technology for Greater China at Sanofi; Xu Yang, IT Business Partner (ITBP) for Merck Healthcare; Liu Wei, Head of AI Drug Discovery Technology at Tencent Health; Zhang Yingnan, General Manager of Smart Pharmaceutical Products at Tencent Health; Dr. Liu Haoyu, Head of Tencent Medical Dictionary; Dai Jiayao, Marketing Product Director at Tencent Qidian; Li Shaochun, General Manager of the Healthcare and Life Sciences Industry for Greater China at IBM; and Wu Yijiang, Technical Strategy and Consulting Director at Accenture China.
Wu Wenda stated that digital technology is bringing unprecedented possibilities to the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. Leveraging its accumulated expertise in AI and big data, along with its extensive digital content resources, Tencent will work closely with partners. By relying on a secure, efficient, and elastic cloud infrastructure and providing a digital capability map covering all processes across the entire value chain, Tencent aims to boost the efficiency of all production factors and drive innovation in pharmaceutical services, thereby harnessing technological progress to improve human health and well-being.
The era in which AI is comprehensively and deeply integrated into every stage of new drug development is rapidly arriving, demonstrating immense potential in enhancing efficiency, reducing costs, and lowering failure rates. As Tencent’s first AI-driven drug discovery platform, “Yunshen Zhiyao” integrates the advantages of multiple Tencent teams in cutting-edge algorithms, database optimization, and computational resources, deeply aligning with the needs of drug R&D to empower the industry’s rapid growth.
At the conference, Liu Wei, Head of AI Drug Discovery Technology at Tencent Health, shared new advancements in the “CloudDeep Intelligent Drug Discovery” platform. In the area of protein structure prediction, the platform’s newly developed algorithm framework, tFold, has demonstrated its innovative value and effectiveness on CAMEO, an internationally recognized authoritative benchmarking platform, maintaining the weekly champion title for several consecutive months. By integrating physical characteristics with local data training, its ADMET property prediction model has proven to outperform mainstream software solutions. Furthermore, through collaborations with industry partners, the platform has established a positive feedback loop involving testing feedback and model iteration. Additionally, the platform has achieved multiple breakthroughs in lead compound discovery and small-molecule drug generation.
Currently, the “Yunshen Zhiyao” platform has established collaborations with multiple pharmaceutical companies, and the prediction accuracy of its models has been validated through wet-lab experiments in various real-world R&D scenarios. Leveraging the high-performance computing power of its drug screening cloud service, the platform has achieved order-of-magnitude improvements in both screening speed and the chemical structural space explored. Looking ahead, by providing advanced AI-driven drug discovery algorithms, robust cloud computing capabilities, and top-tier algorithmic expertise, the platform will further deepen industry partnerships, integrate dry-lab and wet-lab workflows, and jointly accelerate the drug development process.
As mobile internet penetration deepens in the pharmaceutical sector, compounded by the impact of the pandemic and stricter compliance regulations, academic promotion targeting physicians is undergoing a significant transformation. For pharmaceutical and medical device companies, establishing partnerships with trusted digital platforms and shifting portions of their academic promotion activities online has become key to achieving operational excellence. Leveraging its expertise in cloud technology and its deep-rooted presence in the pharmaceutical and medical device industries, Tencent has launched NGES (Next Generation Engagement Suite), the first SaaS solution tailored for the pharmaceutical industry, designed to manage physician interactions, while continuously driving application innovation.
At the conference, Zhang Yingnan, General Manager of Tencent Health’s Smart Pharmaceutical Products, introduced the latest functional iterations and technological innovations of the NGES platform: In the customer management module, remote audio-video interactive visits are enabled via WeChat Mini Programs to enhance visit effectiveness; in the meeting management module, features such as automatic recognition of registered physicians upon entry and insightful analysis of meeting outcomes help pharmaceutical and medical device companies optimize meeting processes and precisely deliver academic information; in the content marketing module, compared with the native backend of Official Accounts, the platform supports grouped mass messaging and evaluation of push notification effectiveness, enabling more personalized and precise communication.
Furthermore, given the unique characteristics of the industry, ensuring security and compliance is the primary consideration for pharmaceutical and medical device enterprises as they undergo “cloud transformation” across various operations. As the only provider in this vertical sector offering end-to-end solutions spanning IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS, the NGES platform leverages Tencent Cloud’s fully self-developed technological infrastructure. It not only better meets security and compliance requirements but also rapidly responds to dynamic scaling needs and flexibly configures business filtering rules. This empowers pharmaceutical and medical device companies with future-ready academic promotion tools, enabling more convenient, seamless, and efficient communication with physicians.
Driven by factors such as evolving user habits and the increasingly mature online ecosystem, digitalization is progressively deepening its penetration in scenarios including patient information acquisition, diagnostic and treatment consultations, and disease management. To better meet patients’ diverse scenario-based needs throughout their digital journey, Tencent has launched a suite of capabilities comprising medical science popularization, a medication toolkit, and health service platforms. The company also shared specific case studies at the conference, aiming to deliver service experiences that provide patients with a strong sense of value and satisfaction.
During the event, Dr. Liu Haoyu, Head of Tencent Yidian, provided a detailed explanation on how to co-create science popularization content with professional physicians and achieve precise, high-value outreach based on user insights. Unlike general health information platforms, Tencent Yidian is committed to deepening its expertise in specialized medical science communication. It recreates authentic clinical scenarios in content planning, aggregates high-quality medical resources in content production, implements multi-tier expert review for quality control, and ensures timely updates for continuous content iteration. By establishing a systematic foundation of medical knowledge, Tencent Yidian provides scientific guidance throughout the entire diagnosis and treatment process, thereby leveraging digital science communication to enhance patient education.
Meanwhile, Dai Jiayao, Product Director of Tencent Qidian Marketing, presented cross-industry case studies focused on the promotion of over-the-counter (OTC) medications and engagement with health-conscious consumers. As an integrated intelligent marketing platform, Tencent Qidian Marketing empowers enterprises with omni-channel reach capabilities, spanning from public-domain entry points to private-domain touchpoints. By consolidating comprehensive modules—including user management, content management, community management, advertising placement, marketing automation, and analytical insights—the platform enables efficient and precise marketing execution.
Built on a secure, efficient, and elastic cloud computing foundation, Tencent is continuously enriching and strengthening its digital capability portfolio through in-depth collaboration with pharmaceutical industry partners. From an AI-driven one-stop drug discovery platform to a next-generation physician engagement management platform based on mini-programs, as well as a diverse product matrix including medical science popularization and health service toolkits, Tencent leverages technological innovation to address critical industry pain points and drive the digital and intelligent transformation of the pharmaceutical sector.