How Pharma and Health Tech Startups Can Collaborate Effectively: Insights from Xingshulin

I. The Potential for Co-Branded MarketingDriven by advances in mobile internet technology, the widespread adoption of smartphones, and a buoyant capital market, thousands of internet healthcare startups have emerged in China. These ventures are gradually reshaping the landscape of the healthcare industry, with an increasing share of communications and processes being conducted online. Moreover, these initiatives can precisely target specific patient populations, thereby offering pharmaceutical companies an effective and innovative pathway for academic promotion.Domestic Leading Internet Healthcare Companies (from McKinsey’s Internet Healthcare Report)In my view, internet healthcare companies and pharmaceutical enterprises are natural partners. Internet healthcare companies focus on addressing pain points in medical services and communication, thereby enhancing the practice experience for physicians and the treatment experience for patients; meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies concentrate on providing better treatment regimens and medications for physicians and patients. With shared target users and differentiated products, they form the foundation for co-marketing. Furthermore, many internet healthcare companies are currently in the phase of user accumulation and are not highly price-sensitive. There is a window of opportunity for joint user acquisition, during which these platforms may even offer their services to pharmaceutical companies free of charge. Therefore, this stage presents an excellent opportunity for pharmaceutical marketing professionals who are willing to innovate and embrace trial and error.II. Three Case Studies from XingshulinFor Xingshulin, as a company dedicated to developing medical software applications for physicians, three years of effort have yielded three products: “Medical Literature,” “MedPocket,” and “ChartClip.” These apps have accumulated 1.3 million downloads and nearly 700,000 physician users. We have engaged in extensive communication and exchanges with nearly one hundred well-known pharmaceutical companies, gradually identifying viable and actionable models for collaboration. The following section will first present several case studies of collaborations between Xingshulin and pharmaceutical enterprises, and then, from the perspective of an internet healthcare entrepreneur, offer insights and recommendations on how pharmaceutical companies can effectively partner with internet healthcare firms.

Currently, Xingshulin and pharmaceutical companies mainly cooperate around the “Medical Record Folder” app, with three primary forms of collaboration.

1. Mobile-Based Medical Record Collection

Medical Case Collection Competitions are a key format for pharmaceutical companies to conduct academic marketing. Through case collection, these initiatives not only help cultivate physicians’ prescribing habits but also facilitate the sharing of exemplary cases via offline meetings, enabling more target physicians to exchange clinical experience. The greatest challenge in traditional case collection campaigns lies in the difficulty of acquiring cases. Due to physicians’ heavy workloads, the task of collecting cases is largely delegated to medical representatives. Armed with case collection forms prepared by the Marketing and Medical Affairs departments, representatives visit hospitals, identify eligible cases, complete the forms, and submit them back to the Marketing Department. This traditional model involves a lengthy process, and it is difficult to verify the authenticity of the submitted cases. In some instances, sales representatives even submit falsified forms merely to fulfill their quotas.

The proprietary medical record photography and OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology featured in the Binglijia app have become a key solution to this problem. Currently, Binglijia can digitize and structure uploaded photographic medical records within 24 hours. Many enterprises and product teams have begun adopting the Binglijia app for medical record collection campaigns, replacing traditional methods.

We collaborated with the product team of a renowned international pharmaceutical company to conduct medical record collection using the Bingli Jia (Medical Record Folder) platform. Within less than four months, we rapidly gathered nearly 10,000 qualified medical records. Subsequently, experts provided online evaluations via the Bingli Jia app, selecting a batch of outstanding records for an offline case competition. This project received significant attention from the company’s U.S. headquarters and was specifically presented to the Global Vice President during his visit to China, ultimately being recognized as the company’s most innovative project of the year. In 2015, Bingli Jia was adopted as the strategic tool for medical record collection and rolled out to eight additional product teams. Meanwhile, a mobile-based medical record collection project by a Japanese pharmaceutical company was also awarded the National Best Marketing Innovation Project of the Year. The innovative power of mobile internet is indeed remarkable. Even a simple OCR (Optical Character Recognition) feature, initially tested on a small scale in academic promotion, gained recognition from pharmaceutical executives, bolstering our confidence to pursue deeper collaborations with pharmaceutical companies.

Following the conclusion of this project, many target physicians have developed the habit of using the Medical Record Folder. Beyond merely collecting medical records, numerous physicians are also engaging in spontaneous academic exchanges within the platform. The Marketing Department can next design more in-depth mobile-based academic activities tailored to physicians who have already gone “online.” Many sales representatives who executed this project continue to liaise with our project team to stay updated on new feature developments in the Medical Record Folder, thereby maintaining ongoing communication with target physicians.Tri-fold Brochure for Physicians in the Mobile Medical Case Collection Project; “Cloud Academy” in the Bingli Jia App

In traditional medical academic marketing campaigns, pharmaceutical companies’ marketing departments typically collaborate with professional associations and advertising agencies to design and organize various “academies,” such as the “Breast Cancer Academy” and the “Diabetes Academy.” These academies convene target physicians as trainees and invite several key opinion leaders (KOLs) in the respective disease areas as speakers, primarily through offline meetings. Through irregularly scheduled in-person sessions, speakers and trainees engage in face-to-face academic exchanges and case-based guidance. Such activities are well received by many physicians. However, due to the high economic and time costs associated with offline events, their reach and frequency of impact are limited. With the advent of mobile internet, pharmaceutical companies have increasingly migrated these academy programs to mobile platforms, enabling physicians to discuss and share insights anytime and anywhere, thereby effectively reducing costs.

For example, one user of the Medical Case Folder is a renowned neurology expert from Peking Union Medical College Hospital. She discovered that the platform allows for the creation of groups, facilitating convenient case discussions. Consequently, she and several colleagues from other prestigious Grade A tertiary hospitals collaborated with us to establish the “Xingshulin Dizziness and Vertigo Academy.” Any physician interested in this condition can freely join the group to participate in discussions. Within less than a month, over 300 doctors from across China joined. More than 200 medical cases were discussed via the Medical Case Folder, with one particular case generating over 140 discussion threads. Sixty physicians within the group participated in the discussion of this single case, equivalent to holding a medium-sized academic conference.

Based on this model, pharmaceutical companies have partnered with Xingshulin to jointly establish the “Disease Cloud Academy,” inviting renowned experts—primarily mid-career specialists from key Grade A tertiary hospitals, as they possess greater time and energy to engage in such initiatives. Within the Medical Record Cloud Academy, there are both a one-on-one “Consultation Center” and a many-to-many “Medical Case Exchange Center.” In the Consultation Center, junior physicians send medical records to experts for individualized consultations. In the Medical Case Exchange Center, physicians can post challenging or classic cases to group discussions, where all other participants can view them and engage in case-based discussions. While these groups resemble WeChat groups in terms of human interaction patterns, all discussions are structured around specific medical records, thereby preventing interruptions typical of multi-person conversations. Furthermore, medical records can be conveniently preserved in their entirety and systematically aggregated for statistical analysis.

By establishing such a “Disease Cloud Academy,” enterprises stand to gain significant benefits: it creates a convenient channel for target physicians to inquire about medical cases, while also helping mid-career and young experts build their reputation and acquire more high-value case records. These curated cases can be repurposed for secondary dissemination, serving as highly academic content for pharmaceutical companies’ offline marketing campaigns. Furthermore, this approach helps identify more high-caliber academic speakers, thereby enhancing corporate brand visibility and elevating the academic standing of their products.“Cloud Academy” in the Bingli Jia App 3. “Cloud Ward” of the Bingli Jia App

The “Cloud Ward” feature of the Medical Record Clip app was launched in October 2014. By connecting with patients via WeChat through this app and implementing personalized follow-up plans (including various academic follow-up scales, medication reminders, outpatient visit reminders, and disease education content), nearly 10,000 physicians began using the app to conduct follow-ups with target patients within less than four months. Currently, department directors at several renowned Grade 3A hospitals have adopted Medical Record Clip as their departmental follow-up management platform. The vision of Xingshulin is to help every physician and department in need establish their own “Cloud Ward,” thereby enabling long-term management of all their patients within this cloud-based system.

In this area, we have partnered with a renowned European dermatology company to provide mobile patient follow-up solutions for departments in four large tertiary hospitals. Specifically, the enterprise, Xingshulin, and these departments jointly established “Cloud Wards” to carry out remote disease management and health management for patients. Through pilot programs, department heads and physicians at the hospitals gave high praise to the Cloud Wards. The pilot project was also regarded as a major innovation highlight by the European headquarters, which prompted its Head of eMarketing to convene a dedicated exchange and sharing session in China.“Cloud Ward” in the Bingli Jia AppIII. How Pharmaceutical Companies Should Find PartnersHowever, due to the large number of internet healthcare companies, product managers in marketing departments, who are already heavily burdened, find it difficult to gain an in-depth understanding of these companies in the short term. Secondly, since the end users of internet healthcare products are doctors and patients, their actual usage scenarios on mobile devices are not easily observable. Moreover, given the rapid iteration cycle of these products, it is challenging for product managers to continuously update and master this information. Thirdly, as domestic laws and regulations regarding internet healthcare remain largely undefined, pharmaceutical product managers struggle to assess compliance issues. Compounding this difficulty is the lack of clear metrics for measuring return on investment (ROI). Consequently, selecting suitable internet healthcare partners and identifying appropriate mobile academic promotion strategies have become practical challenges for product managers in marketing departments.

The following suggestions are provided for your reference:

First, consider brand recognition: Brand recognition is essentially a reflection of an internet healthcare company’s product strength. High-quality products attract more users and generate positive word-of-mouth, which naturally enhances brand visibility. Partnering with such companies makes it significantly easier for pharmaceutical enterprises to promote their offerings to target physicians and patients.

Second, it is essential to examine the target audience and core functionalities of the product. Each medical app has clearly defined target users and a well-established functional framework. Pharmaceutical companies can leverage this understanding of users and features to conduct academic promotion tailored to specific target physicians or patients, utilizing the apps’ mature functionalities.

Third, it is essential to determine whether the company has a dedicated department for liaising with pharmaceutical enterprises and a project execution team. Many internet healthcare companies are startups that lack departments specifically designed to interface with pharmaceutical firms, let alone possess dedicated project execution teams. However, having designated liaison personnel and robust project execution management are prerequisites for the success of academic promotion activities. Therefore, when selecting an internet healthcare partner, one should thoroughly evaluate the company’s execution team and prioritize those with a well-established organizational structure for project implementation.

Fourth, it is essential to assess the company’s technical capabilities. The strength of an internet healthcare company’s technology development determines whether its products can undergo continuous and rapid iteration, thereby meeting users’ evolving needs. Only in this way can the company address the ever-emerging functional requirements arising from collaborations with pharmaceutical enterprises, thus fostering long-term partnerships. A straightforward approach to evaluating technical capability is to examine the frequency and speed of version updates for the company’s mobile app, as well as the size of its technical staff.

Fifth, within a compliant framework, companies should have the courage to engage in rapid trial-and-error. At the China Mobile E-Health Startup Competition held earlier this year, Dr. Wu Xiaobin, General Manager of Pfizer China, stated, “With the current surge in internet healthcare, Pfizer is also taking a bold step. Through continuous trial-and-error collaborations with internet healthcare providers, we aim to drive the transformation and innovation of Pfizer’s traditional academic marketing model from the outside in.” Most internet healthcare companies currently prioritize leveraging partnerships with pharmaceutical firms to expand their user base rather than seeking immediate financial gains. They are highly receptive and eager to engage in low-cost or even free trial collaborations with pharmaceutical companies. These collaborative initiatives can focus on a single department, a team of physicians, a patient cohort, or a specific function. The financial scale may vary significantly, and formal contracts are optional. Once the trial phase concludes, successful experiences and processes derived from these pinpointed efforts can be scaled up broadly, evolving into nationwide mobile academic marketing solutions.

For those who dare to innovate and embrace change, this is truly the best era for marketing—and vice versa! The wind is rising; why not give it a try? You might just get lifted by it.

 

The author is Fan Yu, co-founder of Xingshulin. This article has been authorized by Fan Yu for republication on VCBeat.