Lu Tao of Zhiben Internet Hospital: Building an Internet-based Oncology Diagnosis and Treatment Closed Loop from Data to Services
People are increasingly aware that precision medicine is ushering in a new chapter in cancer treatment, with oncology therapy shifting from symptom-based to gene-based approaches.
The genetic testing industry has experienced a turbulent five-year period. The innovation-driven development strategy proposed by the state in the 14th Five-Year Plan has injected strong momentum into the growth of the healthcare sector, ushering in a golden age for the genetics industry.
However, the industry still faces several challenges: How will the future of precision oncology diagnosis and treatment evolve? How can research findings from genetic testing be translated into clinical benefits for patients? How can integrated diagnosis and treatment be effectively implemented? And how can precise disease monitoring and comprehensive lifecycle management be achieved?
In the view of Lu Tao, General Manager of OrigiMed Internet Hospital, the advancement of precision oncology is, from another perspective, helping clinicians accelerate their knowledge iteration. In this process, companies specializing in precision oncology can leverage massive amounts of real-world biological data to provide tools for physicians, efficiently delivering high-quality, personalized cancer treatment plans. “Perhaps in three to five years, precision medicine will yield thousands upon thousands of cancer treatment regimens. Relying solely on clinicians’ existing knowledge systems would make it difficult to identify rational treatment options within a short timeframe,” Lu Tao told VCBeat. “Oncologists need intelligent tools.”
In mid-April, Lu Tao, as a guest speaker at the Internet Healthcare Innovation Forum of the 5th Future Healthcare 100 Conference, shared OrigiMed’s insights and explorations on building a closed-loop system for cancer diagnosis and treatment based on precision oncology and internet technologies.
“Although genetic testing has profoundly transformed oncology diagnosis and treatment practices, it remains challenging for many oncologists to comprehend novel therapeutic regimens based on this emerging technology and to participate in optimizing specific protocols; establishing corresponding patient awareness is even more difficult. This necessitates that companies specializing in precision oncology leverage multi-omics big data to provide more diversified services and tools, thereby extending the benefits of precision medicine to a broader population of cancer patients and healthcare providers. This is the background and original intention behind OrigiMed’s development of its internet hospital,” said Lu Tao.
In recent years, with the continuous accumulation of real-world data, we have also observed many oncology precision medicine service providers proactively seeking to engage more deeply in the closed-loop system of oncology diagnosis and treatment.
For example, some innovative healthcare payment companies have incorporated oncology genetic testing into pharmaceutical benefit packages, waiving the fees for companion diagnostic genetic testing services once patients reach a specified threshold in their use of certain medications. Some cancer patient communities integrate oncology genetic testing with innovative healthcare payment resources to enhance patients’ bargaining power against domestic and international medical institutions, pharmaceutical companies, and other healthcare supply-side entities, while reducing information asymmetry. Certain online physician platforms have partnered with genetic testing service providers to launch cloud-based consultation rooms for oncology genetic counseling. Additionally, some oncology genetic testing service providers have collaborated with digital healthcare marketing platforms to create integrated diagnosis and treatment platforms for specific cancer types, as well as patient-centric closed-loop marketing systems.
Clearly, providers of tumor genetic testing services have long been indispensable participants in the oncology diagnosis and treatment ecosystem.
As the first internet hospital in China dedicated to precision oncology diagnosis and treatment, OrigiMed has continuously innovated and explored its business model. The launch of “OrigiMed Internet Hospital” represents a crucial component of the comprehensive ecosystem for precision diagnosis and treatment. As the first precision medicine company in China to obtain an internet hospital license, OrigiMed Internet Hospital has leveraged technology and innovative models, driven by data, to become an internet-based platform for precision diagnosis and treatment that connects patients with healthcare providers and links upstream and downstream industry players. Ultimately, it achieves efficient and precise matching between patients and medical resources.
At OrigiMed Internet Hospital, patients can access comprehensive and accurate personalized precision diagnosis and treatment solutions through services such as genetic testing, online consultations, clinical trial enrollment and medication management, patient follow-up, and medical insurance payment, thereby achieving full-course disease management. The goal of OrigiMed Internet Hospital is to leverage technology and innovative models to transition offline resources (such as clinical testing for cancer patients and oncologists) to an online platform. It aims to become an internet-based precision diagnosis and treatment platform that connects physicians and patients and links the upstream and downstream sectors of the healthcare industry. By adopting a data-driven approach, it ultimately facilitates efficient and precise matching between patients and medical resources.
Driven by a data-centric core, a comprehensive vision for precision medicine is emerging: a closed-loop ecosystem spanning from genetic testing to personalized, precise diagnosis and treatment; from online consultations to holistic patient management; from clinical trial enrollment to insurance reimbursement; and from data centers to new drug development.
OrigiMed has consistently maintained rapid iteration in its professional technical capabilities, successively obtaining CLIA and CAP laboratory accreditations aligned with international standards, securing dozens of patented technologies, pioneering DNA+RNA testing in China, and developing the country’s first NGS-based companion diagnostic product for NTRK fusion gene detection, thereby accumulating tens of thousands of real-world oncology precision medicine data cases.
Meanwhile, OrigiMed is continuously innovating the business model of its oncology genetic testing services to explore ways to enhance the accessibility of this cutting-edge technology. In particular, OrigiMed has made significant efforts in the internet healthcare model by deeply integrating human, financial, and material resources, thereby establishing specialized vertical capabilities for an oncology-focused internet hospital. This has enabled the company to transition from being a participant in the closed-loop ecosystem of oncology diagnosis and treatment to becoming a platform builder.
Since its launch, the Zhiben Internet Hospital has attracted more than 5,000 oncologists to join its platform and established collaborations with over 500 cancer hospitals across China. During the nationwide outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Zhiben Internet Hospital began to play an in-depth role in building a closed-loop ecosystem for cancer diagnosis and treatment. By partnering with Nuohui Medical, Good Doctor Alliance, and Sinopharm Holdings’ “SPS+ Specialty Pharmacy,” it integrated respective capabilities in tumor genetic testing and data services, patient disease management expertise, oncology specialist resources, and anti-cancer drug supply chain logistics. This collaboration enabled the provision of comprehensive online and offline services for cancer patients, ranging from online expert consultations and purchase and interpretation of genetic testing reports to complimentary medication delivery.
Since then, OrigiMed has leveraged its in-hospital medical resources, genomics databases, and related technical capabilities accumulated over years of oncology genetic testing services to deliver a platform-based online specialty hospital for oncology. It has now established a comprehensive diagnosis and treatment platform featuring key modules such as NGS testing, personalized precision medicine solutions, online consultations and second opinions, clinical trial enrollment and follow-up, whole-course patient management, and insurance payment.
Specifically, OrigiMed Internet Hospital provides services such as online consultations, query and interpretation of tumor genetic testing reports, online multidisciplinary consultations with oncology experts, patient recruitment for clinical trials, and out-of-hospital follow-up. According to Lu Tao, online multidisciplinary consultations with oncology experts are a distinctive feature of OrigiMed Internet Hospital and represent a key integration of OrigiMed’s tumor genetic testing data with clinical expert resources.
Currently, the online tumor expert consultations at OrigiMed Internet Hospital include two major service modules: International Molecular Pathology Online Consultation and International Oncology Molecular Diagnosis and Treatment.
Among these initiatives, the International Molecular Pathology Online Consultation Service is jointly launched by OrigiMed and a consortium of top Chinese pathology experts led by Professor Wang Jian and Professor Zhou Xiaoyan from Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, as well as Professor Zhang Bo from Peking University Third Hospital. Leveraging OrigiMed’s precise detection data from tens of thousands of tumor gene variation cases and real-world research data covering all tumor types, this service provides support and assistance for clinical diagnosis and treatment. The International Oncology Molecular Diagnosis and Treatment Platform is a China-US precision medicine service platform based on Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) testing, co-developed by OrigiMed Internet Hospital and MORE Health, a renowned U.S. medical institution specializing in critical and complex diseases. Relying on top-tier international medical resources, the Molecular Tumor Board (MTB) delivers high-quality, customized healthcare services to more Chinese users, including international molecular oncology consultations.
As functionalities iterate and understanding of patient needs becomes increasingly refined, Zhiben Internet Hospital continues to add more service modules.
Lu Tao pointed out that the essential nature of malignant tumors as a major disease determines their characteristic of requiring “intensive services.” The services provided by OrigiMed’s internet hospital differ significantly from those of large-scale internet healthcare platforms that focus on online consultations for minor ailments. “Tumor genetic testing is the traditional strength of OrigiMed and the foundational cornerstone of OrigiMed Internet Hospital,” Lu Tao stated. “This means we serve patients with advanced-stage, severe cancers who have rigid demands for both the duration and quality of medical care. Their traffic is relatively concentrated and not difficult to acquire. The real challenge lies in integrating these specialized vertical services into the internet hospital framework and ensuring that both doctors and patients accurately understand the value of such in-depth services.”
Lu Tao candidly stated that although the integration of internet healthcare with precision oncology has benefited both physicians and patients in multiple cases, OrigiMed Internet Hospital is still exploring its path. This includes efforts to deeply curate clinical and biological big data and develop artificial intelligence algorithms, thereby providing physicians with more intelligent analytical and decision-support tools while helping patients gain a clearer understanding of their treatment plans. “In large hospitals, the time physicians can devote to individual patient consultations is very limited, which fails to meet the needs of cancer patients. OrigiMed Internet Hospital’s approach is to allow physicians to use brief offline interactions to build patient trust, while delivering more in-depth medical services online, where more time can be allocated,” said Lu Tao.
Furthermore, Lu Tao believes that comprehensive, end-to-end disease management for cancer patients represents a future trend. Typically, even when cancer patients have only two to three years of life expectancy remaining, they tend to seek medical attention only when their condition progresses, resulting in fragmented, sporadic clinical data. In Lu Tao’s view, improving the quality of life during the survival period can significantly enhance patient benefits and even improve prognostic outcomes. To connect these scattered data points into a coherent continuum and strengthen professional disease management outside hospital settings, the integration of data and internet technologies is essential.
Lu Tao told VCBeat that although OrigiMed’s internet hospital currently functions primarily as a tool, its importance within the closed loop of precision oncology diagnosis and treatment will gradually increase. This growth is driven by the trend of treating malignant tumors as chronic diseases, the expanding ecosystem of precision oncology internet healthcare platforms, and the standardized interoperability of medical data. When asked about future competition and collaboration with major internet healthcare platforms, Lu Tao indicated that they might establish integrated partnerships in traffic and services, leveraging differentiated service models.