YiSuizhen, a Tumor Follow-up Platform, Secures RMB 20 Million in Series A Funding and Files for IPO

In October 2014, the physician-facing mobile app of Yi Suizhen, a cloud-based platform for mobile follow-up care in oncology, was officially launched. To date, the platform has registered tens of thousands of patients and more than 10,000 physicians, with over 1,000 daily active physicians. Dr. Zou Shihong, CEO of Yi Suizhen, stated, “We believe the oncology market is sufficiently large. Therefore, we will continue to refine our product along its established roadmap, aiming to create a more seamless tripartite system integrating physicians, hospitals, and patients, facilitating better information exchange among all parties, and enabling each stakeholder to obtain the services they need.”

In 2012, the General Office of the Ministry of Health issued the scoring criteria for clinical oncology specialty programs, explicitly requiring follow-up of discharged patients and evaluation of treatment outcomes. In fact, this requirement is not limited to the field of oncology; according to China’s “Regulations on the Administration of Medical Institutions,” the Detailed Implementation Rules for the Accreditation Standards of Tertiary General Hospitals also mandate the establishment of systems for follow-up and appointment management of discharged patients.

The introduction and implementation of the aforementioned national policies have undoubtedly created favorable development opportunities for “Yi Suizhen.” Unlike other follow-up platforms that focus on chronic cardiovascular diseases, Yi Suizhen is dedicated exclusively to the specialized niche of oncology, providing follow-up care services to hospitals, physicians, and patients.

In an interview with VCBeat, Zou Shihong stated, “We entered the market through oncology departments to provide post-treatment patient management, specifically post-diagnosis follow-up. In 2012, the national government issued relevant standards mandating that specialized oncology hospitals establish post-diagnosis follow-up systems. The implementation of these systems is directly linked to the reaccreditation and evaluation of tertiary hospitals, making them a critical necessity for hospitals. This was the rationale behind our project’s market entry.”

It is worth mentioning Dr. You Jiangyun, another co-founder of Yi Suizhen. As China’s first female postdoctoral researcher in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), she has long been dedicated to healthcare informatization, providing management services to over 3,000 hospitals and implementing Hospital Information Systems (HIS) for hundreds of them. Furthermore, as an advocate of post-hospital management theory, she has assisted more than 100 hospitals in establishing specialized oncology departments.



Cloud Data Connects Doctors, Hospitals, and Patients

Zou Shihong told VCBeat, “Tumor follow-up is not only a strong demand for specialized hospitals but also an essential need for patients. Cancer treatment is costly, the condition is complex, and patients often experience significant anxiety and psychological stress. Through the Yi Suizhen platform, we aim to provide patients with attentive and professional medical care while reducing the likelihood of tumor recurrence.”

Yi Suizhen’s platform is centered on a cloud-based data interaction platform that integrates and connects in-hospital and out-of-hospital information. It establishes an in-hospital follow-up system with routine follow-ups as its core function, and leverages a physician-facing mobile app to accomplish complex clinical and research follow-up tasks. Ultimately, patients can access follow-up services through multiple channels, including WeChat, PC, and mobile apps.

In addition to the patient-facing mobile app currently under development, the Yi Suizhen PC platform offers knowledge resources such as “Health Care Classroom” and “Healthy Living,” enabling patients to conduct self-assessments and preliminary self-diagnoses. The WeChat Official Account for patients allows them to receive structured remote follow-up management from physicians, providing a basis for hospitals to formulate appropriate treatment plans. Furthermore, patients can consult their attending physicians via the WeChat Service Account on a paid basis.

For physicians, the physician-facing app enables complex clinical and research follow-up functionalities. By leveraging a cloud-based follow-up platform, it allows access to patients’ out-of-hospital data while providing data storage and interaction capabilities. Physicians only need to design follow-up templates and initiate follow-up plans; the system will then automatically distribute questionnaires to patients according to scheduled timelines, collect responses, and populate table data. Physicians simply log in to the app to review the follow-up results. In cases where data is incomplete, Yi Suizhen also supports hospital follow-up staff in contacting patients by phone to supplement missing information.

From traditional phone-only follow-ups to the current model combining automated systems with manual outreach, Yi Suizhen has reduced physicians’ follow-up workload and minimized follow-up costs. Moreover, by enabling physicians to provide paid services to multiple patients, the platform facilitates multi-site practice and underscores the value of physicians’ services.

For hospitals, Yi Suizhen helps establish an in-hospital follow-up system that automatically handles routine and simple follow-up tasks. The resulting data is transmitted to the physician’s mobile app, enabling doctors to easily review patient follow-up records and clearly identify whether there is recurrence or metastasis. Another significant advantage of Yi Suizhen is its seamless integration with the hospital’s internal Hospital Information System (HIS). Leveraging a cloud-based interaction platform as a hub, it integrates in-hospital patient data with out-of-hospital follow-up information, providing hospitals with more comprehensive data to facilitate more efficient follow-up management.

Technology Is King

In fact, this mobile follow-up platform with independent intellectual property rights encompasses multiple national technical patents. Technologies such as mobile electronic medical records (EMR), OCR recognition and parsing, and data sorting enable patients to upload medical records via photos, text, or voice. The platform can extract relevant information, thereby reducing the burden of manual data entry. The abnormality alert system automatically identifies abnormal indicators for early warning through ontology modeling, facilitating the early detection of disease risks. It can also generate health trend charts for various indicators based on historical data.

Yi Suizhen, equipped with the aforementioned core technologies, has also undertaken multiple national initiatives, such as the National Key Technology R&D Program under the Ministry of Science and Technology during the 11th Five-Year Plan period, the development of clinical system platforms for National 973 Program key projects, and the “Angel Project” long-term network service platform deployed for the National Health and Family Planning Commission.

Yi Suizhen’s technological breakthroughs are closely tied to Zou Shihong’s professional background. In 2006, Zou Shihong was promoted to Associate Professor at Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, specializing in mobile computing and mobile information security. As a Chinese expert in mobile internet technology, he had co-founded Beijing NetQin World Inc. in 2005. Within just six years, NetQin World went public on the New York Stock Exchange.

Zou Shihong has now left NetQin to focus on building the Yisuizhen brand. “The brand was previously named Yiye Wang, but it has now been renamed Yisuizhen,” Zou explained. “We plan to go public within the next three to four years.”

Profit Model and Financing Status

Yi Suizhen’s current revenue primarily stems from doctor-patient consultation fees. Patients can pay for consultations on a per-visit, monthly, or annual basis; for example, a single phone consultation costs RMB 300, a monthly subscription costs RMB 400, and an annual subscription costs RMB 4,000. Additionally, the setup of follow-up systems for hospitals is provided free of charge.

On June 8, 2015, according to a public announcement, Beijing Yitong Huarui Technology Co., Ltd. had completed a RMB 20 million Series A strategic investment in Yi Suizhen.

Editor: Bu Yan