Accelerating Value Unlocking: Putting Clinical Needs Front and Center

How can medical innovation seize opportunities for value realization?

Statistics released by NMPA show China granted marketing approvals to 76 innovative drugs and 76 innovative medical devices in 2025, hitting an all‑time high. By the end of 2025, China boasted 4,751 investigational innovative drugs, accounting for 33.7% of the global total and making it the world’s top holder of innovative drug pipelines.

Recently, the launch ceremony for the “Value Acceleration Initiative 2026”, co‑hosted by the Global Health Industry Innovation Center (GHIC) and Tsinghua PE, took place at Zhongguancun Dongsheng International Science Park.

Lin Hang, Deputy District Chief of Haidian District, Beijing, noted that healthcare is a core strategic emerging industry under Haidian’s “1+X+1” modern industrial framework. To address pain points plaguing medical innovation—namely “difficulties in translation, positioning and financing”, Haidian pursues two core positioning goals: building an “AI+healthcare industry pilot zone” and a “medicine‑engineering cross‑sector innovation demonstration zone”, and refining its industrial ecosystem across six dimensions to deliver end‑to‑end support for innovative projects.

Effective implementation of district‑level strategies hinges on precise municipal policy instruments. With clear industrial priorities set, how can innovators receive full‑chain support spanning concept validation and commercial translation?

VCBeat learned on‑site that Beijing has rolled out strategic application platform policies this year to bolster early‑stage proof‑of‑concept projects and advance “grant‑investment linkage”, where fiscal capital pairs with market‑oriented investment to fuel entrepreneurship. Municipal authorities will continue to back medical innovation, with special emphasis on “innovation with deep clinician participation”.

As policies unlock greater value, structural hurdles facing industrial development are drawing heightened attention: innovations genuinely rooted in front‑line clinical practice remain far too few.

“The biggest challenge for medical innovation lies not merely in zero‑to‑one scientific breakthroughs, but in the one‑to‑one‑hundred translation leap,” remarked Chang Xiaolei, Vice‑President of BEIJING TSINGHUA INDUSTRIAL R&D INSTITUTE. Against this backdrop, BEIJING TSINGHUA INDUSTRIAL R&D INSTITUTE founded the Global Health Industry Innovation Center, an end‑to‑end service platform covering proof‑of‑concept through industrialization, acting as “the steadfast running mate for innovators”.

“Most projects I encounter are enterprise‑led. Companies conceive ideas before engaging clinicians. Projects originating from clinical insights that then seek R&D partners are comparatively rare,” one medical expert observed at the event.

The expert recalled a stent‑device project dating back to 2020. At that time, domestic and imported stents already constituted a mature, medical‑insurance‑covered market capable of meeting most surgical requirements.

Why pursue another stent project? The rationale was straightforward: product directors saw ample market volume and rising surgical volumes, believing marginal product improvements could capture market share.

“Promising on paper, yet grim in reality,” the expert commented. The stent failed to gain traction. The enterprise even integrated surgical‑robot capabilities and conducted human trials, but the project ultimately collapsed. “Without solving genuine clinical pain points, even sizable market potential cannot guarantee product success. Many current innovations deliver only iterative tweaks, adjusting structures or parameters without meaningful transformation.”

When engineering development decouples from clinical imperatives, cutting‑edge technology becomes an exercise in self‑referential logic. Simply assembling professionals from disparate disciplines yields limited impact; true integration demands deep mutual interplay.

Take cardiovascular care as an example: thermal, cryogenic and PFA (pulsed‑field ablation) modalities all represent physical energy‑based interventions. Without clinician input and validation, developers cannot identify which approach delivers superior safety, efficacy and practicality. Sophisticated engineering principles mean little without demand‑driven medicine‑engineering integration.

Industry insiders noted: “Many AI‑driven drug‑discovery specialists master AI, computation and predictive modelling, yet lack pharmaceutical expertise. They cannot assess synthetic feasibility, pre‑clinical or clinical outcomes, nor priorities for clinicians and regulators. Silos persist across development stages.”

Nevertheless, the landscape is shifting. In August 2025, the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission and Zhongguancun Administrative Committee jointly rolled out a joint grant program with Capital Medical University‌ to fund translational research driven by clinical demands. The program offers annual funding of RMB 100 million, with an aggregate total of RMB 500 million. Beijing is also piloting a dual‑principal‑investor system, where clinicians and academic researchers jointly lead projects.

Additional enablers include dedicated funds and the Regulations on Clinical Research and Translational Application of Biomedical New Technologies, which open pathways for novel technologies. After biomedical clinical research concludes, technologies can either be deployed within medical institutions or submitted for registration with NMPA. Early‑stage trial‑and‑error filters out unviable candidates and improves subsequent registration success rates.

Since clinicians’ clinical insights fuel innovation pipelines, talent training for medicine‑engineering integration must start early.

Wang Jingjing, Director of the Global Health Industry Innovation Center, explained that the Value Acceleration Initiative shortlisted 50 projects from over 150 applicants. Participants progress through three phases: business‑plan refinement, proof‑of‑concept coaching via innovation academy, and capital‑matching roadshows, supplemented by dedicated follow‑on funds. Three inaugural program participants presented representative projects anchored in real‑world clinical demands.

Dr. An Yang, Chief Plastic Surgeon at Peking University Third Hospital, presented a novel soft‑tissue filler built on decellularized adipose matrix. China’s medical‑aesthetics market exceeded RMB 400 billion in 2025 and is projected to hit RMB 450–500 billion by 2026. The project addresses unmet demand for domestic high‑end regenerative injectable fillers.

Professor Yang Zhaohua from Beihang University demonstrated a hyperspectral intelligent tongue‑diagnosis device, leveraging modern technology for non‑invasive monitoring of chronic conditions including gastric disorders and menopause‑related syndromes. Its team blends clinical practitioners and post‑2000‑born PhD researchers driving industrialization.

Yan Yimo, Founder of Sisheng Technology, showcased an ultrasound‑based brain‑computer‑interface project focused on ultrasound‑mediated blood‑brain‑barrier opening to advance central‑nervous‑system drug development. The firm has completed seed and seed‑plus financing; its core team draws talent from Tsinghua University, ETH Zurich, Peking Union Medical College and Huawei’s “Genius Youth” program.

Investors are evaluating medical ventures with heightened stringency. From an investment perspective, industry players point out that clinical origin alone is insufficient; projects must demonstrate global scalability. “Two new benchmarks apply to medical‑device deals: sufficiently large addressable markets, and global‑go‑to‑market capacity. Target markets are not limited to China, but the whole world.”

Moving forward, more projects are expected to enter value‑acceleration pipelines and deliver solutions for genuine unmet clinical needs.