AliHealth Launches At-Home Alzheimer's Blood Test with IVD Reagents Supplied by ASTRABIO

On September 21, AliHealth, the healthcare arm of Alibaba Group, unveiled a home-based blood testing service for Alzheimer's disease, bringing diagnostic capabilities that were once confined to hospital specialists directly into patients' living rooms.

The service leverages single-molecule immunoassay technology — widely regarded in clinical settings as the most sensitive detection method available — which the company says is 1,000 times more sensitive than traditional enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays, or ELISA. A visiting nurse draws just five milliliters of venous blood, and the sample is analyzed for seven key biomarkers associated with Alzheimer's: amyloid-beta 42, amyloid-beta 40, the Aβ42/Aβ40 ratio, phosphorylated tau-181, phosphorylated tau-217, neurofilament light chain, and glial fibrillary acidic protein. Results are delivered online, accompanied by a professional interpretation of the report.

The service is now available in 253 cities across China, including Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Guangzhou, and Nanjing. During World Alzheimer's Day promotions, users can search for "阿尔茨海默病检测" on the Taobao mobile app to access the service page. The starting price is 499 Chinese yuan (approximately $69), though that figure covers only a single biomarker — phosphorylated tau-217. The full seven-marker panel costs more than 1,500 yuan (roughly $207).

Behind the service are two companies that represent different slices of China's in-vitro diagnostics ecosystem.

The reagent supplier is ASTRABIO, formally known as Suzhou ASTRABIO Co., Ltd. Founded in 2019, the company says it is the first in China to commercialize single-molecule immunoassay technology, with core intellectual property that is entirely self-developed. Its detection sensitivity reaches the femtogram-per-milliliter range — a threshold that traditional ELISA methods cannot approach.

ASTRABIO has translated that technology into a piece of hardware called the AST-Dx90, a fully automated immunoassay analyzer. In June 2022, the device received a Class II medical device registration certificate from the Jiangsu Medical Products Administration, becoming the first such approval in China for fully automated single-molecule immunoassay equipment. Looking ahead, the company's next-generation analyzer — the AST-DxSMD — along with its phosphorylated tau-217 protein assay kit, earned Class II registration as a Jiangsu Province innovative medical device in May 2026. The system delivers ultra-sensitive, rapid detection under a fully automated workflow, breaking through the sensitivity bottleneck that has long constrained conventional immunoassays.

The testing itself is carried out by Shengting Medical, formally Hangzhou Shengting Medical Technology Co., Ltd., which serves as the designated laboratory for sample processing. Founded in 2013 by Tu Yongjun, chairman of the listed company Tianyu Shares, together with a core team from the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Shengting Medical has spent more than a decade in genetic testing and precision medicine. The company operates seven central laboratories nationwide and offers more than 1,000 testing items.

Its quality credentials are extensive. Shengting Medical has passed external quality assessments from leading international and domestic bodies — including the National Center for Clinical Laboratories, the College of American Pathologists, the European Molecular Genetics Quality Network, and others — more than 180 times. In March 2025, the company achieved ISO 15189 certification for medical laboratories with what it described as a "zero-defect" evaluation. It was also the first laboratory in China to earn dual CAP and ISO 15189 accreditation for next-generation sequencing in oncology and infectious diseases.

The partnership between AliHealth's consumer-facing platform, ASTRABIO's diagnostic hardware and reagents, and Shengting Medical's laboratory infrastructure illustrates a broader trend in China's healthcare market: the convergence of e-commerce convenience, advanced diagnostics technology, and third-party laboratory services to bring specialized testing out of the hospital and into the home.

For Alzheimer's disease — a condition that affects an estimated 10 million people in China and for which early intervention remains the most effective strategy — the model could prove transformative. The question now is whether consumers will embrace at-home neurological screening, and whether regulators will keep pace with the rapid evolution of direct-to-consumer diagnostics.