JiuJiu Orthopedics Files IPO Prospectus: Rebuilding the Orthopedic Healthcare Ecosystem

This week, the 2015 Chinese Arthroplasty Academic Conference and the 22nd National Annual Conference on Integrated Traditional Chinese and Western Medicine in Orthopedics and Traumatology will be grandly held in Xi’an from September 11 to 13. The organizer is the Orthopedic Surgeons Branch of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association, while the exclusive cooperating institution fully responsible for hosting this annual “Huashan Sword-Fighting” event is “Jiujiu Orthopedics,” a service platform dedicated to the specialized field of orthopedics, offering online follow-up consultations, multidisciplinary consultations, surgical guidance, and lifelong postoperative rehabilitation support.



Wang Dong of Jiujiu Orthopedics explained that “Jiujiu Orthopedics” is a name blending Chinese and Western elements. First, the English word for bones and joints, “joint,” begins with a sound similar to “Jiu” in Chinese. Additionally, internet healthcare emphasizes interconnectivity, which is also conveyed by the English word “joint.” Furthermore, the name reflects the hope that patients will recover their health after surgery and achieve long-term stability of bone tissue. Taking all these factors into consideration, the catchy name “Jiujiu Orthopedics” was chosen.

Tiered Diagnosis and Treatment Internet Platform

Jiujiu Orthopedics officially launched its project in February this year, with the “Jiujiu Orthopedics” APP scheduled to go live in mid-September. As a mobile healthcare O2O platform specializing in the orthopedic niche, “Jiujiu Orthopedics” will establish a three-way communication platform connecting doctors, patients, and specialists. According to Wang Dong, Jiujiu Orthopedics centers on physicians from 1,000 county-level hospitals and 100 prefecture-level city hospitals across China. These doctors recommend the APP to their treated patients, who can scan the doctors’ QR codes on-site, thereby fostering established doctor-patient relationships and laying the foundation for future patient management.

For patients, establishing a connection with physicians via the app is akin to having a personal doctor, enabling them to seek online consultations on orthopedic conditions and other health issues at any time. Each attending physician manages a panel of 50 patients, addressing their inquiries and providing rehabilitation guidance. Wang Dong noted that although medical consultations are typically low-frequency events, the 50 patients selected by each physician are high-quality cases requiring long-term follow-up and rehabilitation instruction, thereby ensuring frequent interaction between doctors and patients.

Jiujiu Orthopedics also recruits renowned orthopedic specialists from prefecture-level cities, provinces, and major metropolitan areas such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou—including experts from Peking Union Medical College Hospital—to join its expert platform, establishing authoritative, multi-tiered online expert studios. When general practitioners encounter complex or challenging treatment issues, or when patients lack confidence in local physicians’ expertise or dispute diagnostic results, they can select higher-level specialists on the app platform to request expert consultations and seek second opinions on diagnosis and treatment.

Experts can also leverage their spare time to remotely assess patients’ conditions, conduct online follow-up consultations and multidisciplinary consultations, provide surgical guidance to general practitioners, and offer postoperative rehabilitation instructions to patients, thereby determining whether patients need to be referred or continue treatment at local hospitals. If the capabilities of local physicians are indeed limited, experts may either travel to lower-tier hospitals to perform surgeries personally or arrange for patients to be transferred to their own institutions for treatment.

Wang Dong told VCBeat that Jiujiu Orthopedics has currently invited dozens of renowned experts. The number will be expanded in the future based on business needs, with each province recruiting 20–30 provincial-level experts and at least 100 national-level experts. For ordinary physicians, specifically attending physicians, the plan is to onboard approximately 10,000 within one year.



“Our core philosophy is to enable patients to undergo diagnostic evaluations and receive treatment locally; inviting renowned experts serves this very objective,” said Wang Dong. “Since not all medical conditions require care at large tertiary hospitals, cases that can be managed at county- or prefecture-level hospitals should be treated locally, with referrals to larger hospitals reserved for those requiring higher levels of care.”

Since orthopedic referrals are relatively straightforward and medical image interpretation serves as the primary basis for clinical diagnosis, there is a saying in the field of orthopedics that “a single imaging film can take you anywhere.” Going forward, Jiujiu Orthopedics will focus on integrating the PACS systems of major provincial, municipal, and county-level hospitals, enabling county-level orthopedic physicians to directly transmit X-ray images to senior specialists for diagnostic assistance.

In addition, Jiujiu Orthopedics provides comprehensive backend management services to help physicians establish long-term patient follow-up mechanisms. These include collecting patient data, regularly assessing health status, and intelligently reminding patients to take medications or schedule in-hospital examinations and treatments. Furthermore, by integrating medical products from pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, community physiotherapy beds, and rehabilitation health products, Jiujiu Orthopedics delivers comprehensive postoperative rehabilitation services to patients.

“In regions such as the United States and Taiwan, hospitals place great emphasis on the postoperative rehabilitation process; surgery is not the end but merely the beginning of treatment,” said Wang Dong. Postoperative patients are required to return to the hospital for re-evaluation every month, or even every week. Many orthopedic procedures—such as corrective surgeries for various types of paraplegia, foot and hand deformities (e.g., hallux valgus), lumbar and cervical spine disorders, and artificial joint replacements—require long-term, effective rehabilitative therapy. In China, however, due to the large patient population, individuals are often discharged home for self-care after surgery without expert intervention or guidance. Consequently, prognostic outcomes are frequently suboptimal, significantly increasing the likelihood of readmission for secondary or even tertiary repeat surgeries.

Wang Dong believes that the ratio of doctors to patients in China is not severely imbalanced; rather, medical resources are extremely scarce in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou. However, 60% of the efforts of doctors in hospitals in these cities are devoted to treating patients with minor ailments, leading to an uneven distribution of resources. Jiujiu Orthopedics encourages patients to seek initial treatment locally whenever possible. If local facilities are unable to provide adequate care, patients can then apply for online expert consultations or referrals. By leveraging internet tools, this approach aims to achieve tiered diagnosis and treatment, thereby reducing doctor-patient communication costs and improving medical efficiency.

Moreover, Jiujiu Orthopedics strives to educate patients on the proper approach to orthopedic treatment. Through its professional ground promotion teams, it conducts various lectures on health basics, diagnosis and treatment, and rehabilitation management at each partner hospital. For patients reluctant to undergo joint replacement surgery, Jiujiu Orthopedics also holds specialized seminars to explain the necessity of the procedure.

Wang Dong stated, “Osteoarthritis, often referred to as ‘the cancer that does not kill,’ has maintained a persistently high incidence rate in China. Each year, 100 million people are affected by the disease, with approximately 50 million exhibiting symptomatic manifestations. However, the annual joint replacement rate in China is less than one-fourth of that in the United States, amounting to only 300,000 procedures. This disparity stems from eligible patients not undergoing recommended replacements. Therefore, market education is essential to increase patient acceptance of surgical treatment.”

The Jiujiu Alliance: A Crowdfunding Initiative Driven by the Synergy of Medicine, Pharmaceuticals, and Medical Devices

Wang Dong was formerly an orthopedic surgeon with six years of clinical practice. In 1998, he transitioned to the business sector, progressing from a sales representative at Sanofi to Hong Kong AuMen Pharmaceutical, where he advanced from an ordinary salesperson to Sales Director. He has since served as General Manager of a pharmaceutical manufacturer, a position he continues to hold.

“With over two decades of industry experience, I have connected with numerous peers in pharmaceuticals and medical devices, industry experts, and hospital resources within the orthopedics field. I will invite them to join the platform as affiliates, creating an amplified radiating effect of resources. Together, we will nurture the Jiujiu Orthopedics brand, achieving resource integration and sharing while connecting the upstream and downstream segments of the orthopedic industry chain. This will establish a comprehensive ecosystem where medical institutions, pharmaceutical and device manufacturers, and patients coexist,” Wang Dong told VCBeat.

All resource institutions within the grand ecosystem can join as equity partners, a model Wang Dong calls the “Jiujiu Alliance.” Pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers can leverage the platform to promote their products and services to both physicians and patients. Medical experts can train and mentor general practitioners through expert studios, thereby building their personal brands and expanding their influence. Both manufacturers and physicians can accumulate valuable data from patient feedback to enhance product quality and academic expertise. For patients, in addition to receiving follow-up care and authoritative guidance from physicians, they can also enjoy the benefit of purchasing pharmaceuticals and medical devices at factory or discounted prices.

Wang Dong stated that one of the typical characteristics of the internet era is crowdfunding and mass innovation. “In the era of crowdfunding, everyone can be a boss, realizing their own value while serving others.”

Currently, the official website of Jiujiu Orthopedics features only an announcement for the upcoming 2015 Annual Academic Conference on Joint Surgery. In the future, Wang Dong plans to host more national-level academic conferences. For instance, an agreement has been reached with members of the Orthopedic Surgeons Branch to hold a Hospital Presidents’ Forum next year, aiming to enhance communication and exchange between orthopedic hospital presidents and the association. Additionally, a “Master’s Mentorship” column featuring renowned experts will be launched to disseminate their insights through online videos. Technical capabilities at grassroots hospital departments will be advanced through conferences, fellowship training, and other initiatives. This constitutes another major strategic plan for Jiujiu Orthopedics: building the most influential and professional information technology exchange platform in the field of orthopedics. This platform is expected to become one of Jiujiu Orthopedics’ future revenue streams.

Wang Dong told VCBeat that, unlike most free online consultation platforms, Jiujiu Orthopedics adopted a patient-paid model from the outset. Patients bear the costs for all services, including online consultations, offline referrals, and follow-up visits. Additionally, pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers that leverage the platform for self-promotion are potential fee-paying clients. In the future, value-added services offered by the platform, such as rehabilitation therapy and insurance, will also be charged to patients.

Editor: Bu Yan