HuiZhong Respiratory Files for IPO: Pioneering Digital Therapeutics in Chronic Respiratory Disease Management

Do you know about chronic respiratory diseases?

Chronic respiratory diseases are recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as one of the "four major noncommunicable diseases." With a large number of affected individuals and a heavy socioeconomic burden, they have become a significant public health issue impacting human health.

Among these, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) account for approximately one-third of the total number of cases. In particular, patients with COPD experience a continuous decline in lung function once diagnosed, resulting in severe impairment of their quality of life.

Image courtesy of Huizhong Respiratory

In fact, compared with stroke and coronary heart disease, the post-diagnosis management of chronic respiratory diseases (asthma, COPD) is relatively more effective. However, the post-diagnosis management of these conditions continues to face numerous challenges, such as poor patient adherence and difficulties in achieving long-term follow-up and guided treatment.

Have you heard of digital therapeutics? It may serve as an effective approach to post-diagnosis management of chronic respiratory diseases.

According to the official definition by the Digital Therapeutics Alliance, digital therapeutics (DTx) provide patients with evidence-based therapeutic interventions driven by high-quality software programs to prevent, manage, or treat disease.

Digital therapeutics can be used alone, in combination with medications, or alongside other therapies to improve patients' health outcomes. In the chronic disease management market, standards for monitoring and managing data related to chronic respiratory diseases have not yet been fully established, leaving this segment relatively undeveloped.

How did this startup successfully enter the field of chronic respiratory disease management and rapidly build its digital therapeutics products and commercial pathway? How does it view the development of digital therapeutics in China? To answer these questions, VCBeat conducted an exclusive interview with Gao Yunlong, Founder and CEO of Huizhong Respiratory.

Huiyi Medical Technology (Shanghai) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “Huizhong Respiratory”), established in 2019, is an internet-based medical institution dedicated to the field of respiratory-specific diseases, developing and integrating digital therapeutics to provide whole-course disease management services for patients with respiratory conditions.

Professor Bai Chunxue, Founder of IoT Medicine and Chief Medical Scientist at Huizhong Respiratory, has established a standardized clinical diagnosis and treatment pathway known as the “5A Diagnostic and Therapeutic Method,” integrating various respiratory diseases with his extensive medical experience.

The entire therapeutic regimen comprises five steps: Ask (taking medical history), Assess (examination and evaluation), Advise (providing recommendations), Arrange (appropriate scheduling), and Assist (supportive management).

Huizhong Respiratory has deeply integrated the 5A diagnostic and treatment methodology with digital therapeutics, driving product development and implementation to create the 5A-DTx digital therapeutic product. This solution connects terminals for physicians, patients, and medical institutions, covering the entire lifecycle of chronic respiratory disease prevention, screening, and treatment.

Composition of Huizhong Respiratory Digital Therapeutics Products — Information Provided by Huizhong Respiratory

Huizhong Respiratory Digital Therapeutics products can be used independently in the context of full-cycle patient management, or in combination with respiratory disease medications and diagnostic or therapeutic devices.

By collecting and analyzing the clinical manifestations of COPD patients, as well as data from IoT-based diagnostic and therapeutic devices and medication usage, the product provides clinicians with auxiliary diagnostic and treatment recommendations.

Gao Yunlong, founder of Huizhong Respiratory, introduced that Huizhong Respiratory’s digital therapeutics enhance patient interaction experience and engagement through product design, deeply integrate with relevant policies, thereby improving patient adherence to pharmacological and device-based therapies, while also providing disease risk alerts to improve treatment outcomes.

Huizhong Respiratory has initiated applications for multiple digital therapeutics. Its products are currently in the project initiation and declaration stage for CFDA certification, with clinical trials scheduled to commence this October and registration certificates for digital therapeutics expected by the end of 2022.

First, Huizhong Respiratory leverages leading Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence, and big data cloud computing technologies to establish a SaaS-based regional respiratory specialty disease management system. Its multi-terminal interconnected model facilitates seamless data sharing between in-hospital and out-of-hospital settings as well as patients’ homes, comprehensively empowering the diagnosis, treatment, and post-diagnosis management of respiratory diseases.

In any given disease area, services are often fragmented. Although pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers offer related management services, they lack integrated solutions. The Huizhong Respiratory SaaS Management System serves as a third-party platform, centering on patient care to create distinctive yet comprehensive single-disease integrated solutions for pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers.

Image courtesy of Huizhong Respiratory

In addition, Yinchuan Huizhong Respiratory Internet Hospital Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Huizhong Respiratory and a flagship brand initiative of the company, provides medical services such as disease management closely integrated with respiratory conditions for both patients and healthcare providers.

Huizhong Respiratory also actively collaborates with both public medical insurance and commercial health insurance providers. Leveraging its proven disease-specific management outcomes and services, it jointly launches corresponding commercial insurance products tailored to specific diseases. This approach not only enhances therapeutic efficacy and reduces expenditures for both public and commercial insurers, but also helps patients lower their out-of-pocket costs through high-quality disease management.

As can be seen, the integration of Huizhong Respiratory Digital Therapeutics with SaaS platforms and internet-based specialty hospitals has not only established a product barrier for post-diagnosis services in chronic respiratory diseases, but also deeply facilitated"Medical Services," "Patients," "Pharmaceuticals," "Medical Devices," and "Insurance"of the closed-loop post-consultation service for respiratory specialty diseases.

Currently, Huizhong Respiratory has completed the minimum viable commercial validation in the medical services sector and achieved scaled revenue.The SaaS-based specialized respiratory disease management platform has been integrated into 150 medical institutions at various levels, serving thousands of physicians and 130,000 patients, and is poised to help Huizhong Respiratory achieve annual sales revenue exceeding RMB 40 million.

Huizhong Respiratory boasts high-quality clinical resources and has established collaborative partnerships with renowned respiratory experts at leading domestic institutions, including Zhongshan Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University, Shanghai Institute of Respiratory Diseases, Renji Hospital, Shulan Hospital, Henan Provincial People’s Hospital, and Yinchuan First People’s Hospital.

Huizhong Respiratory also brings together senior experts from the medical, pharmaceutical, medical device, engineering, and even regulatory sectors.

Gao Yunlong, founder of Huizhong Respiratory, brings years of experience in the internet and IoT healthcare sectors. He previously led his business team to secure data platform contracts across multiple provinces within a single year, demonstrating outstanding capabilities in resource integration and market expansion.

Bai Ru, Vice President of Marketing; Sun Xuefeng, Vice President of Market Development; and Ma Wenyue, Director of Operations are all key management talents at Huizhong Respiratory. The three possess extensive managerial experience in medical devices, drug registration, and marketing.

Technical Director Ming Ming, formerly the lead executive for AI product development at iFLYTEK, hails from a family of medical practitioners and has previously spearheaded the development of multiple healthcare informatics platforms. His expertise in the interdisciplinary field of medical-engineering product R&D has provided significant advantages to the productization and implementation of Huizhong’s respiratory care solutions.

Such aRobust Medical Background, Advanced Research and Technology, Strong Market Expansioncomprehensive team, enabling Huizhong Respiratory to develop high-quality products and service models within just one year, rapidly achieving business model coverage across multiple provinces and regions.

Behind the rapid growth of a company always lies a warm, original aspiration.。

In an interview with VCBeat, Gao Yunlong, Founder and CEO of Huizhong Respiratory, shared the original motivation behind founding the company: “In 2015, I had the honor of representing Chinese youth at the Annual Meeting of Global Shapers in Geneva, Switzerland. During that time, I gained a profound understanding that humanity shares a common destiny. We have undergone rapid development, bringing about tremendous changes across all aspects of society.”

World Economic Forum Chairman Klaus Schwab Signs and Presents Book. Photo courtesy of Huizhong Respiratory Care.

“Yet billions of people worldwide still lack basic access to livelihood and healthcare, with even their most fundamental living conditions remaining extremely harsh. Some colleagues have even crossed war-torn borders from neighboring countries to attend this conference. The agenda focuses on a humanity-wide perspective, discussing how we can make our planet a better place,” added Gao Yunlong.

"This journey elevated his soul."Committed to advancing human progress by focusing on healthcare and contributing modestly to the development of medical services.

Gao Yunlong Attends Global Youth Annual Conference at the United Nations Office in Geneva, Switzerland – Photo courtesy of Huizhong Respiratory

Gao Yunlong stated that most internet medical services remain at the stages of health information consultation, remote lightweight consultations, and even online pharmaceutical sales. Whether in terms of the depth of disease management, patient adherence, or full-cycle disease management, these services still fall short of the genuine care expected by the public.

Addressing these challenges is precisely the direction for the future development of internet healthcare and the responsibility it must shoulder, requiring greater patience and investment; thus, Huizhong Respiratory was established.

Gao Yunlong stated that Huizhong Respiratory will expand its coverage to more provinces, establish additional disease-specific respiratory management platforms, and upgrade its products by launching Service Version 2.0 to drive revenue growth.

When discussing the impact of digital therapeutics on the current healthcare market, Gao Yunlong stated that digital therapeutics have first addressed significant challenges in the mid-to-late stages of disease management across many therapeutic areas.

Secondly, it can be deeply integrated with insurance to enhance patients’ willingness to pay for medical products with proven efficacy. Digital therapeutics can quantify the value of their diagnostic and therapeutic services through clinical outcome and pharmacoeconomic analyses, thereby diversifying payer sources.

The services provided by internet hospitals and future disease-specific management institutions are essentially medical services centered around digital therapeutics, which represents a crucial development direction for chronic disease management, with digital therapeutics being the core component.

With digital therapeutics, companies can engage with insurers to explore how to better help patients manage their diseases while reducing expenditures on health insurance premiums or medical costs, which represents a broader objective for the future of health or medical insurance.

Gao Yunlong also stated: “The goal of internet-based healthcare is to help the state address certain issues that existing physical medical institutions are unable to resolve, particularly the extension of out-of-hospital services. This is also one of the original intentions behind the state’s establishment of internet-based healthcare.“In the future, internet hospitals will also need to provide high-quality out-of-hospital medical services.”