Top 10 Medical Innovation Contenders Unveiled: Pioneering the Future of Healthcare

As the “golden track” most driven and influenced by national policies, the healthcare industry has witnessed rapid development in recent years, rekindling greater hope across the primary market.

In 2020, 36Kr’s “Star” Species Entrepreneurship Program leveraged its platform strengths to identify numerous high-quality projects in the healthcare sector that demonstrated innovation, growth potential, and value. The initiative aimed to facilitate their super-evolution from innovators to industry leaders through pitch events and resource matchmaking.

Recently, the finals of the “Star” Species Entrepreneurship Competition—“New Forces in Healthcare,” hosted by 36Kr, were officially held in the Caojing River Economic Development Zone in Shanghai. Ten high-quality projects, selected from four specialized tracks—biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, precision medicine, and smart healthcare—participated in roadshow presentations.

In response, investor experts at the event provided detailed commentary on each project, offering more targeted financing and strategic recommendations to facilitate their further development and arrange relevant financing matchmaking. In addition, industry experts shared their insights on current trends in several hot sub-sectors, such as healthcare informatization and molecular diagnostics for cancer. As one of the top ten “New Forces in Healthcare” projects, 36Kr not only provides comprehensive media services to high-quality enterprises but also offers one-on-one financial consulting services delivered by PwC’s expert think tank.

As a key partner of 36Kr, Wuxi International Life Science Innovation Park (I·Campus) also provided significant support for this “Star” Species Entrepreneurship Competition.

Investors also provided detailed feedback on each project, taking into account their unique characteristics and pitch performance. Their aim was to help companies clarify their strategic thinking, leverage their strengths, and thereby enhance their fundraising efforts or strategic planning, ultimately supporting their further development. For select representative cases, 36Kr has excerpted some of the expert judges’ comments for our readers’ benefit.

Taking Lida Rongyi as an example, Luo Xi, Director of the Healthcare and Life Sciences Team at China Renaissance, pointed out that it has very clear application scenarios in the medical field. It can help individual departments or physicians achieve further improvements, enhance medical quality, and even control costs, so hospitals definitely need such products. However, in the current macro environment, commercialization poses a significant challenge, as the payment mechanisms are not yet clearly defined.

“Doctors are certainly likely to favor such a product; however, the final procurement decision rests with the hospital. Hospital administrators will evaluate whether the product can generate additional revenue or drive business growth for the institution. If it fails to do so, it is likely to be rejected, particularly by hospitals that are already operating at high capacity. Regarding future development, considerations should include how to rapidly replicate the solution across other business lines, expand application scenarios, and leverage the subsequent developmental value of the high-quality medical data collected—for example, through integration with insurance providers.”

Similarly, Liu Dong, Editor-in-Chief of VCBeat, also pointed out that even though the Chinese market is substantial in size, it is necessary to consider multi-departmental development, as needs may vary across different departments, posing challenges to model replication. Additionally, specific considerations must be made for future commercialization.

Regarding Weizhi Zhuo Biotech, Zheng Yanjun, Partner at KIP Capital, pointed out that safety must be the primary consideration at this stage. After ensuring safety, emphasis should also be placed on patent applications, with attention paid to whether upgrades are driven by technology or by therapeutic approaches.

Regarding SanYou Bio, Zheng Yanjun stated that this is a relatively competitive sector. To achieve long-term development, companies must possess distinct characteristics and demonstrate typical R&D achievements, such as drug candidates in the later stages of clinical trials.

Regarding Aihui Health, experts believe that the current market features a wide variety of similar products and relatively intense competition, placing high demands on corporate operational capabilities and medical resource integration abilities. To achieve the goal of going public in 2023, it is necessary to break down the objectives for each stage in detail.

In the short term, the pandemic has brought dividends to many niche industries. For instance, AI-powered rapid medical imaging screening, AI-assisted diagnosis and treatment, and cleaning/medication delivery robots can help address challenges such as an overwhelming number of individuals requiring screening, shortages of healthcare personnel, and the need to reduce the risk of nosocomial infections. In response to the demand for specific therapeutic drugs and vaccines, the role of AI in assisting new drug development (including target identification, molecular design, crystal form optimization, and formulation) has been further demonstrated and leveraged. To minimize the risk of infection between patients and healthcare providers, internet-based remote consultations and online pharmacies will also play a significant role. Furthermore, shortages of epidemic prevention supplies and healthcare workers have created more opportunities for the development of B2B trading platforms (facilitating the global expansion of China’s medical supply chain), AI imaging, and AI-assisted diagnosis and treatment.

Over the long term, in the coming decade, China will face accelerating population aging, turbulence in Sino-U.S. relations, and the deepening of healthcare reform policies; the compounding effects of these factors will exert varied impacts across different industries.

Data shows that China’s population is aging rapidly from 2020 to 2035. In 2020, the elderly population (aged 65 and above) accounted for 12.6% of the total population in China. This proportion is projected to rise to 21.2% by 2035, formally surpassing the share of the elderly population in the United States. By 2035, it is estimated that one in every five Chinese people will be aged 65 or older; by 2050, this figure will reach one in every four. Amidst the current insufficiency in medical resources and social security provision,AI-based medical imaging/AI-assisted diagnosis and treatment, internet-enabled healthcare (remote, grassroots-level, and inclusive), new forms of supplemental insurance, and community-based elderly care support will gradually play an important role.

Additionally, due to geopolitical reasons,Chinese pharmaceutical and medical device companies will accelerate the process of import substitution.This will inevitably create significant opportunities for leading pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, digital solutions for hospitals and clinics, and core software for new drug development and clinical trials. Furthermore, due to policy-driven factors such as the “4+7” centralized volume-based procurement and the “Two-Invoice System,” profit margins for generic drugs and pharmaceutical distribution have declined substantially.Domestic pharmaceutical companies can only pursue the path of innovation through innovative original drugs and Class II new drugs;Due to personnel-related constraints, new drug R&D by foreign pharmaceutical companies in China will slow down and face certain restrictions, thereby leaving more market space for domestic innovative originator pharmaceutical companies. Consequently, digital solutions for pharmaceutical enterprises, as well as core software for new drug R&D and clinical trials, will also benefit from this trend.

The significance of early cancer screening and detection goes without saying. Thanks to the widespread adoption of early cancer screening in the United States, the five-year cancer survival rate there is 1.8 times that of China, representing a 30-percentage-point difference. For cancers such as colorectal, breast, and prostate cancer, successful early screening has led to particularly significant improvements in five-year survival rates. However, more than half of cancer patients in China are diagnosed only at advanced stages. Public perception of cancer remains stuck in the mindset of “prioritizing treatment over prevention.”

Meanwhile, traditional diagnostic methods are not sufficiently “user-friendly” for healthy individuals. As diagnostic approaches for specific tumors, the so-called “gold standard” tests (such as pathological examination or imaging-based detection) have certain drawbacks, including high costs, limited applicability to specific tumor types, and poor generalizability; many are invasive, causing physical and psychological resistance and discomfort; they pose significant risks of radiation exposure, making them unsuitable for long-term, repeated testing; the widespread shortage of advanced equipment leads to patient backlogs and substantial time consumption; and the high threshold for access prevents self-testing without professional guidance.

In response, early-screening molecular diagnostics have emerged as an optimal solution. The European and American markets in this field are relatively mature, with unicorn companies such as Grail, Thrive, and Freenome having emerged. In China, numerous related projects have been launched in recent years (with listed companies like Burning Rock Biotech and Genetron Health actively expanding their presence). There remains a significant market gap domestically, offering substantial room for growth. However, local enterprises need to focus on investments in two key areas: first, enhancing technical capabilities, such as expanding the detection of cancer biomarkers and improving the interpretability of artificial intelligence; and second, ensuring greater market friendliness, for instance, by developing multi-omics-based early screening technologies and further reducing costs and prices.

As a crucial component of the strategic upgrade in the healthcare industry, local innovation in biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, precision medicine, and smart healthcare has become key to driving high-quality industry development and meeting the substantial needs of patients. In these critical sectors, various companies are playing significant roles within their respective fields. Through the finals of the “New Forces in Healthcare” competition, the top 10 high-quality projects each presented their business operations and current development status.

Weizhuo Biologics is an innovative biopharmaceutical technology company focused on severe liver diseases and cell therapy, possessing internationally leading technologies in cell transdifferentiation and production. Its core technology involves the direct transdifferentiation of human-derived fibroblasts into hepatocyte-like cells (hiHep), representing a breakthrough advancement in the global biomedical field. In terms of industrial implementation, Weizhuo Biologics has established and commenced operations of China’s first clinical R&D production line for human-derived bioartificial livers. Reportedly, the production line has an annual capacity of 300 to 500 units, sufficient to support clinical studies for more than 200 patients.

An AI-powered innovative drug design service platform that provides integrated solutions—including pharmaceutical knowledge graphs, privileged scaffold discovery, and molecular generation and design—to pharmaceutical R&D enterprises, thereby enhancing the efficiency and success rates of key stages in new drug development, such as drug discovery, design, and synthesis. Currently, StoneWise has two core products: an AI-driven intelligent molecular design platform and a pharmaceutical knowledge graph. The intelligent molecular design platform offers drug chemistry experts capabilities for scaffold-based novel molecule generation and recommendation, as well as property-based molecular optimization, enabling the intelligent design of molecular structures. The knowledge graph extracts and integrates information on diseases, targets, small molecules, and other relevant entities from billions of diverse data points across multiple reliable sources, thereby constructing a comprehensive pharmaceutical knowledge graph database.

Established in 2015, Lida Rongyi is China’s first medical technology service company specializing in the integration of clinical pathway data and data services for cardiology and obstetrics/gynecology. Its current business spans multiple sectors, including intelligent systems, data services, postoperative follow-up management, and industrial ecosystem services. Centered on single-department industrial ecosystems, Lida Rongyi has developed a relatively comprehensive integrated clinical intelligence solution. It has also designed multiple disease-specific intelligent medical knowledge graphs to standardize underlying data, significantly alleviating the cumbersome workload of healthcare professionals. The intelligent medical services provided by Lida Rongyi have reached a mature stage in enhancing the efficiency and quality of single-department operations. Since last year, the company has initiated its market expansion in leading hospitals across several provinces in China.

An R&D-focused enterprise leveraging artificial intelligence to innovate myopia prevention and control systems has established a comprehensive intelligent framework encompassing “screening, monitoring, and prevention/treatment.” This system includes an early-stage visual acuity data collection module, real-time analysis of dynamic changes in vision, and a complete regimen of vision-preserving exercises. The company has long been dedicated to researching myopia among Chinese adolescents, collaborating with Peking University, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Beijing Tongren Hospital. Centered on its proprietary “Ciliary Muscle Potential Training Method,” the company continues to advance its R&D efforts. It holds four invention patents, two utility model patents, and one design patent, with more than 20 additional patents pending. The company has also been honored with the China Edison Invention Award.

Focused on the research and development of next-generation Digital Infrared Thermal Imaging (DITI) technology, we conduct comparative studies between DITI and gold-standard diagnostic data from CT and MRI. Additionally, we are developing AI engines for pre-examination early screening in key specialties such as pain management, respiratory medicine, and general health checkups. Targeting the 56.2% of early-stage COVID-19 infected individuals who present without fever, Bitop Technology has developed the world’s first upper respiratory tract assessment system. This system efficiently screens for infected individuals exhibiting abnormal thermal metabolism in the upper respiratory tract, potentially addressing the issue of missed cases among asymptomatic, afebrile patients. Currently, many countries and regions use infrared cameras to rapidly screen for febrile patients. While this approach offers advantages in quick temperature screening, it still results in missed diagnoses because conventional infrared thermal imagers cannot perform intelligent analysis of image features associated with respiratory diseases of the head and neck.

Focused on the research and development of neuroprotective drugs, the R&D pipeline currently comprises five projects, including two core initiatives: 1) Project TTYP01: Utilizes proprietary patented formulation technology to enhance oral bioavailability and is currently undergoing Phase I clinical trials. 2) Project TTYAO1: A “First-in-Class” innovative biologic based on a novel target and mechanism of action for the treatment of stroke and Alzheimer’s disease. This project has completed pharmacological and preliminary pharmaceutical studies and is expected to enter clinical trials within two years.

With social development and improved living standards, human life expectancy has gradually increased, accelerating the aging of the population. Consequently, the incidence of central nervous system (CNS) diseases has risen steadily, directly driving a rapid increase in global sales of CNS drugs. Within this market, neuroprotective agents remain a significant blue-ocean segment.

Established in 2015, the company primarily leverages its tumor screening technology platform to provide customers with precise products and services for early cancer detection. Currently, the company has completed the development of early detection products for colorectal cancer, cervical cancer, esophageal cancer, endometrial cancer, and other malignancies. Meanwhile, it will further expand its R&D efforts into early screening products for other types of cancer, extending its reach into pan-cancer detection. Currently, Amissen’s flagship product, Ai Changkang®, is a stool DNA-based colorectal cancer screening test. The product employs a dual-target detection combination with strong complementarity, mutually enhancing sensitivity for left-sided and right-sided colorectal cancers. Moreover, its testing efficiency per personnel is more than 10 times that of Exact Sciences’ Cologuard product in the United States.

Established in 2015, TriAntibody Bio is a high-tech biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the research and development (R&D) of innovative antibody therapeutics and related services. It primarily provides drug R&D solutions to biopharmaceutical companies. Specifically, TriAntibody Bio collaborates with clients to obtain innovative antibody molecules through two models: first, by offering contract research organization (CRO) services leveraging its leading antibody libraries and integrated R&D capabilities; second, by independently incubating or co-developing antibody molecules and then licensing them to clients. Additionally, TriAntibody Bio possesses multiple “ultra-large antibody libraries containing over 100 billion variants,” enabling comprehensive solutions for human, murine, and alpaca antibodies, covering nearly all categories currently involved in antibody drug development.

In its early stages, AiHui Health was primarily positioned as an integrated service platform combining information, entertainment, and consumption at the hospital bedside. Following strategic investment from Haichuang Medical Investment this year, the company rapidly completed its business upgrade and transformation, expanding its scope to include internet healthcare and mobile health examination services. It has achieved a matrix-style management upgrade across four core business segments: smart wards, bedside internet services, internet healthcare, and out-of-hospital health management. Additionally, by establishing two internet hospitals, AiHui Health has created a closed-loop commercial model encompassing in-hospital treatment, out-of-hospital rehabilitation, and health management.

As an upstream player in the biomolecular mass spectrometry industry, the company has achieved significant success in the cutting-edge field of capillary electrophoresis-mass spectrometry (CE-MS) by leveraging its proprietary patents and independently developed mass spectrometry products. At the time, existing liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) technologies could not fully meet the growing analytical and testing demands of the biopharmaceutical industry, while the market lacked sufficiently sensitive, stable, and reliable CE-MS coupled systems. With global demand for CE-MS solutions in biopharmaceuticals unmet by available products, Yongdao Zhiyuan strategically positioned itself to capture this vast blue-ocean market. To date, Yongdao Zhiyuan has served world-leading biopharmaceutical companies such as Amgen, Bristol Myers Squibb, Seattle Genetics, and Regeneron, as well as domestic and international universities and research institutes at the forefront of proteomics and metabolomics research.