WeDoctor Academy Files for IPO: Building China's Largest Academic Conference Library for Over One Million Registered Physicians
In China, the difficulties and high costs associated with accessing medical care have become widely recognized pain points within the industry. These issues reflect underlying problems of uneven distribution and irrational allocation of medical resources. The gap in clinical expertise between physicians at primary-care hospitals and those at Grade 3A (tertiary) hospitals drives patients to flock to tertiary hospitals in major cities, thereby exacerbating the challenges of access and affordability.
China introduced the tiered diagnosis and treatment system years ago, yet its implementation has progressed remarkably slowly. The root cause lies primarily in the substandard clinical competence of physicians at primary care institutions. To address this societal challenge, the government has established physician associations dedicated to continuing medical education (CME), enabling doctors to continually update their medical knowledge and enhance their clinical capabilities. Furthermore, the state has instituted an annual medical competency assessment as part of its regulatory framework; physicians must pass these examinations each year to demonstrate that they maintain the requisite professional standards, thereby retaining their license to practice medicine.
In the continuing medical education market, Weiyihui also aims to contribute to the enhancement of physicians’ professional capabilities. Lü Wenhu, founder of Weiyihui, graduated from the Third Military Medical University (now the Army Medical University) and previously worked at Beijing 301 Hospital, accumulating extensive clinical experience. Driven by a deep-seated commitment to making healthcare affordable for the general public, he co-founded Weiyihui in 2016 with Wang Jian, who has a background in computer science.
Wang Jian, Co-founder of Weiyihui
Wang Jian previously served as the general manager of a business unit at a well-known internet company, bringing extensive experience in the internet and IT sectors. His collaboration with Lv Wenhu has been instrumental in helping Weiyihui achieve deep integration of “Internet + Healthcare.” Wang Jian told VCBeat, “Traditional medical academic conferences primarily serve the role of continuing medical education within specific regions, lacking targeted focus. For attendees, not all doctors are eligible to participate; for instance, young junior physicians may be excluded. Meanwhile, senior physicians at the director level who are eligible often attend due to mandatory assignments rather than voluntary initiative, resulting in low proactive engagement. Consequently, the overall effectiveness of such conferences is often less than ideal.”
Young doctors have limited opportunities to participate, while senior physicians often lack the motivation for further learning. Weiyi Hui has identified this industry pain point and is attempting to migrate offline physician education resources to online platforms, thereby maximizing the utilization of educational resources.
Unlike most continuing medical education (CME) models that rely on “paying experts to deliver lectures,” Weiyihui leverages existing academic conferences as an entry point into the CME sector, acquiring medical resources and delivering medical services to establish a comprehensive medical learning system with low cost and high efficiency.
In 2016, when Weiyihui was just established, the company attempted to broadcast threshold-restricted academic conferences via live streaming to physicians with learning needs. This straightforward and direct approach was Weiyihui’s initial solution to enable more physicians to derive value from academic conferences. Through subsequent explorations, Weiyihui evolved from live-streaming academic conferences to offering recorded rebroadcasts, and ultimately curated these conferences into a proprietary repository, creating a unique academic conference library for broader access and study by physicians.
Weiyihui has partnered with more than 2,000 physician associations and medical institutions, and has entered into an exclusive collaboration with the Trauma Database of the Trauma Branch of the Chinese Medical Association. The company provides comprehensive promotional services to its partner institutions and gains access to high-quality academic conference content, thereby attracting more physician users and achieving a win-win outcome. Currently, Weiyihui’s cumulative base of physician users on its WeChat Mini Program and mobile app exceeds one million, of whom 60% are chief physicians. The remaining 40% of physicians represent the key target group for Weiyihui’s future expansion efforts.
Recorded on-site by the WeDoctor Team at the academic conference
Currently, Weiyihui hosts over 20,000 medical video series, with more than 100 million views and monthly active users exceeding 300,000. Wang Jian stated, “Weiyihui has recorded thousands of academic conferences. Each conference was filmed on-site by our offline team, which places high demands on our personnel. With numerous academic conferences held daily, we must perform a series of post-production tasks after recording to ensure high-quality video output.”
Nevertheless, hard work pays off: WeDoctor Connect has gained recognition from numerous experts in the industry. Wang Jian added, “WeDoctor Connect conducts irregular follow-up visits with expert physicians to solicit their feedback and jointly improve the platform. Furthermore, government entities have proactively reached out to WeDoctor Connect, hoping to leverage the platform to address continuing medical education needs for local physicians. All these developments underscore the industry’s recognition of our efforts, which stands as one of WeDoctor Connect’s greatest achievements.”
Academic conferences explore cutting-edge knowledge in the field of medicine. Weiyihui also recognizes the need to provide foundational medical training for general practitioners. In collaboration with Grade 3A hospitals, Weiyihui has launched specialized online medical training programs, offering premium courses that provide targeted analyses of typical clinical cases.
WeDoctor Hub’s value extends far beyond this, Wang Jian stated: “To address the issue of medical competency among primary care physicians in China, sending medical professionals to rural areas is also an important approach. However, this model has yielded poor results, as many highly qualified doctors are reluctant to work at the grassroots level. In contrast, the general practitioner training programs offered by WeDoctor Hub are more targeted, providing comprehensive coverage and education for physicians within specific specialties.”
Notably, academic conference courses on Weiyihui are currently available for physicians to study free of charge, while medical courses in formats such as training programs will adopt a paid-content model in the future. The company also plans to expand from video-based learning to include text and audio formats, and to extend its content coverage from explanations of cutting-edge clinical cases to research published in medical academic journals. Furthermore, the company is planning to launch an interactive section for experts and physicians, provide work-related tools for physicians, and expand into new scenarios such as preparation for physician qualification examinations.
Currently, Weiyihui has completed a RMB 15 million angel financing round and launched a RMB 50 million Series A financing round. The proceeds will be used for product refinement, expansion of application scenarios, market and team development, as well as hardware and platform upgrades.