HonTrend Innovates Blood Safety with IoT-Enabled 'BloodNet' Platform, Files IPO Prospectus
June 14th each year is World Blood Donor Day, and this year’s theme is “Safe Blood for All.” Safety is the fundamental baseline of blood management; even minor deviations in its complex processes can pose significant safety risks. To ensure safe blood for all and comply with health regulatory authorities’ quality requirements for blood “from vein to vein,” it is essential to implement intelligent safety management across the entire process of blood collection, processing, storage, distribution, and clinical use.
In the field of end-to-end safety management and monitoring for blood, one company integrates Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and cloud computing technologies, striving to build a “Blood IoT” using IoT technology. Currently, its smart blood safety management platform has been deployed at more than ten military and civilian blood collection and supply institutions, including the Blood Collection and Supply Centers of the entire People’s Liberation Army, the PLA General Hospital of the Army, Zhejiang Provincial Blood Center, Anhui Provincial Blood Center, Suzhou Central Blood Station, Ningbo Central Blood Station, and Zhangjiajie Central Blood Station.
The company is named Beijing HC-Innovation Tech Co., Ltd. In simple terms, the “Blood Internet of Things” built by HC-Innovation is akin to the parcel IoT established by Cainiao Guoguo. However, HC-Innovation tackles the blood safety management sector, which presents higher technical barriers, achieving precise tracking and monitoring of every single bag of blood in complex electromagnetic environments characterized by low temperatures, liquids, and metal ions.
What Are the Industry Pain Points in Blood Safety Management? What Value Can “Blood-IoT” Bring to Medical Institutions? VCBeat (WeChat ID: vcbeat) interviewed Dr. Tian Chuan, Founder of Beijing HC-Innovation Tech Co., Ltd., on these issues.
Dr. Tian Chuan told VCBeat that HC-Innovation was founded in 2014, but the entire team had actually been researching blood management since 2008, honing their expertise over a decade. Unlike the conventional approach of tackling industry challenges from easy to difficult, HC-Innovation initially focused on addressing blood management issues under extreme conditions—providing blood management solutions for field troops.
Tian Chuan stated, “In 2008, key national projects under the ‘12th Five-Year Plan,’ ‘Modernization of Military Logistics Support,’ and ‘Theater-Mobile Logistics Support’ initiatives required solutions for blood supply assurance in field combat zones. During emergencies and unexpected incidents, there was a need to rapidly and efficiently collect and transmit blood-related information, which the technological capabilities at the time could not adequately support. We proposed that the Internet of Things (IoT) could enable rapid, efficient, and precise blood safety assurance, thereby transforming the current reliance on manual processes.”
After overcoming the challenges of blood management in field medical units, Beijing HC-Innovation Tech Co., Ltd. also identified issues such as managerial inefficiencies, regulatory blind spots, and information black holes throughout the entire blood industry workflow. The core team decided to launch a startup, leveraging Internet of Things (IoT) technology to empower the entire blood industry.
“Our core team has a background in scientific research, and our key technical members come from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tsinghua University, Harbin Institute of Technology, Southern University of Science and Technology, military research institutes, as well as returnees from NASA-affiliated institutions. We believe that undertaking this endeavor is both rational and valuable,” said Tian Chuan.
Although information technology solutions are currently employed in blood supply chain management, they merely address the issue of computerization by transferring paper-based records to digital formats. In the blood management process, a significant portion of operations still relies on manual labor, and traditional barcode-based tracking depends heavily on manual handling. This results in a lack of authentic data and information, posing serious quality risks to blood management.
For example, using barcodes for blood information management can be problematic, as barcodes are susceptible to damage in low-temperature freezing environments, leading to failures in data retrieval.
To address these challenges, Beijing HC-Innovation Tech Co., Ltd. has developed a smart blood management solution leveraging big data and passive RFID technology. This solution replaces manual inventory checks with intelligent devices, minimizing contact contamination and enhancing efficiency through batch operations. It enables end-to-end traceability, achieving automated, visualized, and intelligent quality tracking and management throughout the entire blood supply chain. The solution provides the public with safe, transparent, and convenient blood usage services, while offering real-time, precise, and efficient blood data information services and scientific decision-making support for national emergency mobilization, thereby driving the intelligent upgrade of China’s blood safety management industry.
HC-Innovation’s product model adopts a combined solution of “electronic tags + smart hardware + software platform.” Its solutions cover all stages of the blood supply chain—including collection, preparation, storage, and transportation for blood station clients, as well as receipt, storage, usage, and disposal for hospital clients—addressing industry pain points in safety monitoring such as batch handover, precise inventory management, efficient stocktaking, and issue early warning.
For blood management agencies, intelligent management can directly reduce the overall operational and maintenance costs of blood stations and lower the risks associated with blood use.
Tian Chuan told VCBeat, “Implementing information management is not difficult, but we need to address automation, which presents a high technical barrier. First, we must ensure physical integrity under conditions of deep freezing and rapid freeze-thaw cycles, achieve accurate reading and automated data collection and processing in liquid environments, and resolve signal acquisition and processing challenges in complex metallic field environments. Once this hurdle is overcome, such IoT technology can be widely applied to supply chain management in industries including vaccines, stem cells, sperm banks, and gene banks, in terms of both application scope and breadth.”
Currently, HC-Innovation Tech’s sales have reached the tens of millions of yuan. In the future, HC-Innovation aims to cover all 502 blood collection and supply institutions across China. Progressing from points to lines, it seeks to establish end-to-end safety supervision throughout the entire blood collection-to-transfusion process; expanding from lines to surfaces, it intends to set industry standards and build a smart blood management data platform; and advancing from surfaces to volumes, it strives to lead the intelligent upgrade of the industry.
Tian Chuan elaborated on HC-Innovation’s strategic plan to VCBeat: “Establishing standards ‘from line to plane’ involves developing a series of industry and national standards, including blood IoT coding, operational procedures, and data interfaces. Currently, this field lacks standardized frameworks, with coding standards for traditional barcode labels monopolized by Europe and the United States, resulting in substantial annual licensing fees paid by China. The ‘from plane to volume’ approach aims to create model cities for blood management, achieving comprehensive interoperability and connectivity.”
Tian Chuan stated that these two aspects are not independent but rather complementary. He said, “In fact, with the support of this ‘broad framework,’ and with corresponding policies and standards issued by the state, we can achieve nationwide integrated development at this standard level. Currently, we have already established collaborations and implemented projects in more than 20 hospitals.”
In addition to its presence in the blood management sector, Beijing HC-Innovation Tech Co., Ltd. will further expand into disease control and plasma collection stations by leveraging the flat architecture of IoT technology, providing end-to-end safety monitoring services for frozen biological products such as blood, vaccines, and biospecimens.
In terms of market size, there are approximately 460 provincial and municipal central blood stations across China, 42 military blood collection and supply institutions, and 15,000 blood-using facilities. The annual plasma collection volume is approximately 20,000 tons. Investment in blood networking equipment at blood stations of all levels ranges from RMB 3 million to RMB 5 million, with the total revenue potential for system construction exceeding RMB 50 billion. Regarding consumables, the annual blood collection volume is conservatively estimated at 20,000 tons, requiring 600 million to 1.2 billion labels, representing a potential market space of approximately RMB 5 billion.
Tian Chuan revealed to VCBeat that, owing to HC-Innovation’s technological leadership and uniqueness, the company is also expanding into international markets through its “Belt and Road” initiatives.
In 2017, HC-Innovation secured its first round of institutional financing from the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Currently, HC-Innovation is also undergoing a new round of external financing.