Sanofi Successfully Hosts Its First Digital Healthcare Innovation Summit in Shanghai Under the Theme 'Dream and Go'

On November 8, 2019, Sanofi, a global leader in pharmaceuticals and healthcare, successfully held its inaugural “Digital Health Innovation Summit” in Shanghai. The event aimed to showcase the latest technologies in the digital health sector, collaborate with innovation partners to empower the future of healthcare, and support the digital transformation of China’s healthcare system. Under the theme “Dream and Go,” Sanofi joined forces with more than 30 high-tech companies, over 100 startups, hundreds of investors, and other partners to explore cutting-edge domestic and international trends in digital innovation. Discussions focused on topics such as “Connected Devices and Patient Follow-up Care,” “Artificial Intelligence and Central Nervous System Disorders,” and “Natural Language Processing and Knowledge Graphs.” The summit also highlighted the achievements made in digital health innovation by Sanofi’s “Extreme Innovation Alliance” during its first 18 months of operation.

“Digital innovation is at the core of Sanofi’s future development strategy. We have formulated a digital transformation strategy dedicated to advancing digital innovation to improve treatment outcomes for patients across China,” said Dr. Pius S. Hornstein, President and General Manager of Sanofi China. “In China, Sanofi collaborates with multiple stakeholders—including the government, hospitals, commercial insurers, and internet and technology companies—while partnering with startups and academia to co-create new solutions through digital technologies. Ultimately, we will leverage digital innovation to maximize the value of our medical products and services, helping Chinese patients better manage their diseases and contributing to the realization of the ‘Healthy China 2030’ goals.”

Dr. Pius S. Hornstein, President and General Manager of Sanofi China

To meet the growing demand for personalized, holistic healthcare solutions, Sanofi leveraged its experience and resources in digital health to establish its first digital innovation platform, the “Ji Chuang Alliance,” in 2018. This initiative builds multi-party bridges for local innovative enterprises, fostering collaborative development of healthcare projects, accelerating the industrialization of digital healthcare, and speeding up product time-to-market.

At today’s summit, Sanofi signed a strategic agreement with Atman, the pioneer in medical language intelligence and the first startup to collaborate under the “Jichuang Alliance.” The two parties will join forces to build an AI-powered bilingual (Chinese-English) medical information platform, leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) technologies to create Sanofi’s Medical Communication Engine. Ma Lei, CEO of Atman, stated, “The establishment of this platform will enable pharmaceutical companies like Sanofi to process medical information precisely and efficiently, scientifically analyze therapeutic areas, gain insights into the competitive landscape, and effectively help enterprises respond rapidly to market changes. Meanwhile, abundant, accurate, and cutting-edge evidence will strongly support companies in developing medical communication plans and producing medical education materials, significantly enhancing the efficiency of their medical communication and training efforts.”

Signing Ceremony of the Cooperation Agreement Between Sanofi China and Suzhou Atman

With the advent of the digital era, Sanofi has been actively exploring collaborations with leading internet companies, embracing digital innovation, and aspiring to become a leader in digital innovation within China’s healthcare sector.

As one of the most common age-related diseases, Parkinson’s disease still has many unmet medical needs in its treatment, seriously threatening the quality of life for numerous elderly people in China. At this year’s China International Import Expo (CIIE), the “Smart Anti-Tremor Spoon” for Parkinson’s disease—an intelligent management solution jointly explored by Sanofi and Gyenno Science—drew significant attention from the industry as soon as it was unveiled.
This anti-tremor spoon not only assists patients in eating steadily and exercising hand balance, but also serves as a digital software platform to track medication efficacy and disease progression. It strengthens the connection between patients and physicians, provides end-to-end closed-loop management of the disease course, facilitates personalized and standardized diagnosis and treatment, and improves the efficiency of Parkinson’s disease management services.
More importantly, this initiative also pioneers frontier exploration of real-world data (RWD) research in the field of Parkinson’s disease in China. A multicenter clinical trial, conducted in collaboration with the neurology departments of multiple Grade 3A hospitals across China, was officially launched this September. To date, valuable patient-derived real-world data have already been generated.

Zhou Qing
Communications Manager
Tel: +86 21 8025 2455
Sunny.zhou@sanofi.com