Advances promise to improve medical care,
provide plentiful investment opportunities
Artificial intelligence is transforming
China's healthcare industry.
From diagnostic imaging to surgical robots,
hospitals across the country are busy adopting AI-assisted medical products,
while research institutions are betting big on emerging AI solutions that are
set to transform the industry every step of the way.
Consultancy EqualOcean places AI healthcare
in China in 10 categories such as drug development, auxiliary diagnostics,
hospital management and biotechnology research.
AI in healthcare could be worth $45.2
billion by 2026, said MarketsandMarkets. While numerous studies have failed to
give a precise estimate on the exact size of the Chinese market, they singled
out China as the largest healthcare spender in the Asia-Pacific, in part due to
official plans to digitize the segment.
Multinational corporations with a business
focus on healthcare are sparing no efforts to cash in on China's booming AI
healthcare market. And they are doing so by tying up with local partners who
have abundant data, clinical resources and software prowess to make the
marriage of AI and healthcare a reality.
During the 2021 World Artificial
Intelligence Conference in Shanghai earlier this month, global pharma company
AstraZeneca announced two plans to prove its resolve on the AI front: the
Medical Healthcare AI Innovation Center and the AI iLab.
Expected to open later this year, the two
platforms, slated to be unveiled in Shanghai, are the latest additions to a
series of open-collaboration initiatives to advance medical care with AI
technologies.
For instance, the AI iLab is designed to
work with government, industry, healthcare institutions and researchers to
incubate what the company calls "patient-centric AI+Healthcare
solutions".
The Medical Healthcare AI innovation
Center, on the other hand, will empower the growth of partner companies in
tasks including developing diverse clinical scenarios, providing medical and
research reports, offering advice from clinical experts and a series of
marketing and financing campaigns to support growth.
"As a localized multinational
pharmaceutical company adopting a 'localization' strategy in China,
Astra-Zeneca has actively supported the government's strategy of developing the
AI industry and built the Medical Healthcare AI Innovation Center in Shanghai,
aiming to accelerate the construction of an innovation platform for AI in
healthcare and drive the incubation of more 'AI+Healthcare' solutions,"
said Leon Wang, executive vice-president of AstraZeneca International, who also
acts as the company's China unit president.
AstraZeneca demonstrates its AI-enabled disease-screening cart during the
2021 World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai on July 9
Local partners hold the key to success in
China's vast medical market, and AstraZeneca has a track record of keeping
abreast of local needs. It has launched a series of open-source innovation
platforms－CCiC－in multiple Chinese cities, and formed 10
model AI+Healthcare application scenarios like intelligent outbound follow-up
calls at community hospitals.
But it does not stop there. During the
three-day conference, AstraZeneca inked deals with Deepwise on developing an
AI-assisted software system for interpreting the low-dose spiral CT scans of
pulmonary nodules.
In a separate collaboration with Qiji
Investment, the pair vowed to establish an AI innovation center in the Lin-gang
Special Area of China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, with the support of the
municipal government.
With some 22 percent of AI companies
established in China and over $12 billion invested in the area, there is no
doubt that China leads the way in AI, said Allan Gabor, president of Merck
China, a prominent science and technology company that had a booth at the
event.
"We set up this booth to demonstrate
what we can achieve through AI in each of our business sectors and how we
embedded into the ecosystem in China through our innovation hubs," Gabor
said.
Gabor believes that one aspect of AI
research with untapped opportunities is in healthcare and drug discovery,
because the sheer size of the libraries used to screen for new drug candidates
means it is now practically impossible for individual researchers to review
everything themselves－and that is
where AI and machine learning can help.
"Advancements in artificial
intelligence have allowed us to go from screening millions of compounds to tens
or hundreds of millions, using AI learning and data to identify predictive
patterns for use and classify new data for optimized drug discovery and development,"
Gabor said.
He added that AI can be used to predict the
properties of a potential compound, generate ideas for entirely novel compounds
and alleviate the need for repetitive tasks, all of which can save time, money
and accelerate the drug discovery procedure.
For instance, Merck is introducing
AI-backed retrosynthesis software, where AI stands to help scientists define
research topics, explore thousands of possible pathway options for target
molecules and predict chemical reactions.
The company is bringing other tangible
solutions to Chinese clients: Merck's BioContinuum Platform, which the company
said can advance biotherapeutic drug manufacturing and trim manufacturing costs
by up to 50 percent in pilot studies, is now being used by biotherapeutics
company Transcenta.
The platform involves integration of what
are typically batch-based, separate manufacturing steps into a connected
process, thus allowing continuous bioprocessing manufacturing in China.
"We are delighted to be part of this
vibrant ecosystem－especially
through our Innovation Hubs in Shanghai and Guangzhou," said Gabor.
"We are confident that we can support the strong ambitions for China to
become the leading high-tech nation."
GE Healthcare is also finding in China a
more mature market to host its Edison healthcare intelligence platform, which
is designed to help improve patient outcomes and increase access to care.
Embedded within existing workflows, Edison
applications can integrate and assimilate data from disparate sources and apply
analytics or advanced algorithms to generate clinical, operational and
financial insights.
"We've seen Chinese AI startups with
better quality and much higher maturity in just two years' time," said Dai
Ying, vice-president of GE Healthcare in China. For instance, since its entry
into China in 2019, the Edison AI platform has had over 200 application
scenarios.
In its latest localization AI push, the
company announced the signing of Memoranda of Understanding to cooperate with
multiple local AI companies like Shukun and Yizhun-ai, angel investor
Sinovation Ventures and the Smart Healthcare Development Alliance, a trade
group focused on setting standards and carrying out quality inspections.
