The next "Gold Mine": the opportunity and risk of mobile medicine

2014CES shows us a variety of health medical equipment, showing that the era of Internet of things is walking. Technology giant Google (1197.16,-2.09,-0.17%) to buy Nest and Android Wear open platform for health data monitoring attention, the industry's prosperity to the climax.

Where else should we look, in addition to wearable devices that focus on health data? Athletic, healthy, sick, weak. Our concern and commitment to mobile medicine is still relatively inadequate. But now, VCs have begun to flow into the area of smart medical hardware.

The dawn of the hardware era has come. This "gold mine" in the field of mobile medicine needs to be dug, but the opportunity and the risk are all in. Grasp the pulse of the Times is not enough, hardware and software Cross-border resource integration, complete supply chain control and product replacement rhythm, are entrepreneurs need to use the necessary skills.

Medical hardware entrepreneurs, this time whether to stand on the tuyere, can not fly up?

From mobile phone research and development to medical hardware

In the 90 's, the mobile industry was underdeveloped, and the black Motorola "Big Brother" was Tuhauzai's mobile phone.

Soon after graduating in 1999, Young Li Chengzhi, tired of the car industry copying foreign designs, turned to join Motorola, a mobile-phone architect. This is the beginning of his career as an Internet hardware product.

In the Small pantry of Microsoft (40.33, 1.06, 2.7%) VC Accelerator, Li Chengzhi, the current CEO of Sugar Protection Technology, continues to talk about his hardware and software career.

After 3 years of working in Motorola, he has been working in the mobile phone architecture management at the CLP and Tak Shin. He started his first venture in 2010. By accepting investments from the US infosonics, he sells customised handsets to Latin America, from design development to purchasing a whole supply chain, and manages and controls them.

After 14 years in the mobile phone circle, he saw the development of intelligent Mobile medicine, began his second venture, the goal is medical hardware and software. From car chassis design to mobile phone design sales, to today's medical hardware, all correspond to the traditional communications industry to the Internet, mobile internet age changes. Is it possible to take the opportunity to actively devote oneself to the Li Chengzhi of the change of technology industry?

The wide range of mobile internet segments makes this industry full of opportunities and pitfalls. Why invest in the professional mobile medical vertical field? "I have a friend who has a medical doctor who has diabetes, and then we want to work together to combine diabetes with the mobile Internet because of the large number of users, the strong stickiness and the high usage rate." "Li Chengzhi said.

How many people have diabetes in our country? The International Diabetes Federation estimates that around 370 million diabetics are in the world. According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, as of last September, Chinese diabetics had reached 114 million, accounting for about one-third of the global Diabetes population.

The internet industry is subverting a variety of traditional industries, medical industry is one of them, at the same time is more "difficult to gnaw bones."

Why is diabetes surveillance suitable for mobile internet? "Traditional blood glucose testers need to take out a pen record, or find a computer to enter a table curve, and then print it out and bring it to the doctor." "Li Chengzhi said. and Li Chengzhi sugar nurse cell phone blood glucose meter is the traditional diabetes detection for mobile internet, automatic sampling, generate curves, user-friendly real-time monitoring.

DR2, chairman of Medicool Medical software company, said that the addition of mobile medical hardware equipment, because of its portability and convenience features, has greatly improved the patient's compliance, the distribution efficiency of medical human resources and disease prevention and control.

"Sugar nurses have the first advantage, the first to enter the medical hardware industry to accumulate, combined with its hardware product experience, has now established technical barriers, or will produce strong user stickiness." Dr2 said. At the same time, the sugar nurse also has three Connaught biological medical support and innovation Workshop and Microsoft VC's Internet technical support.

Mobile Surveillance Health Index

Walter Mosenborg Walt Mossberg, a global IT critic, has expressed his views on smart medicine. He wrote: "Currently wearable smart devices are developing in full swing and tend to track fitness data, but the medical field has not received much attention." Technology is progressing very slowly in the medical field. ”

Dr. Mo in post several cell phone blood glucose meter, one of them is ihealth intelligent blood glucose meter. Ihealth is a Silicon Valley personal health data management company, with a range of health smart devices including sphygmomanometer, blood glucose meter, scales, etc. The Ihealth smart blood glucose meter is designed to be simple, linear and stylish, and supports both iOS and Android mainstream devices.

Li Chengzhi sugar nurse cell phone blood glucose meter, mainly using small external hardware equipment to collect blood samples, through mobile phone applications for data storage, management and analysis, while adding the function of sharing, remote monitoring and knowledge popularization, to help patients and family real-time monitoring of blood sugar levels, easy to carry out health management.

Specifically, mobile phone applications have five functions, namely, measurement, management, analysis, forum and Mall. The user can in the test module, the blood sugar value carries on the long short term goal setting. Currently, users can share the glycemic index on social platforms such as microblogs and micro-trust friends.

Next, Li Chengzhi plans to apply access to the medical platform on the line, such as the spring Rain handheld doctor. In the sharing function, click on the appropriate medical platform, will automatically screen the user's blood sugar curve, so that it can on the glycemic index and food and drink with the Doctor online communication.

Sugar nurse blood glucose meter in addition to appearance and connection, in function and ihealth have similarities. However, Ihealth is the transmission of hardware detected through Bluetooth to the mobile phone, and the current sugar nurse is still an external way to achieve data transmission.

To achieve the exact suitability of iOS and Android devices, the Li Chengzhi team sent the products to Apple (528.7,-2.56,-0.48%) headquarters for iOS certification tests; Android, because of the wide range of Android equipment in the domestic market, they have found more than 380 kinds of equipment, to carry out an external test , the adaptation rate reached 95%.

Li Chengzhi said that at the end of this year, the release of the new Sugar nurse blood glucose meter, will realize Bluetooth connection, such as a variety of wireless connection, while the development of new hardware interface, and strive to do a simple and easy to use more beautiful, easy to users of all ages.

VCs Enter the mobile medical field

The global mobile health market is expected to exceed $49.1 billion trillion by 2020, according to a new study published by the US market research firm, Grand View.

The mobile internet has spawned medical care in the mobile, intelligent and information age. Including the disease prediction, diagnosis, disease management, rehabilitation, including the medical links have internet companies began to dabble. New mobile medical models, such as disease monitoring, telemedicine, and large data solutions grow faster.

Last year, domestic mobile medical investment began to heat up, including the spring Rain handheld doctor, aunt, sugar and other companies have been to different degrees of investment. Although the industry prospects are considerable, there are also different advantages and problems.

Spring Rain The world is an early entry into the field of the contestants, the product of the spring Rain Palm Doctor app in 2011, mainly for doctors and patients seeking medical consultation links. There are still commercial explorations, such as user-launched value-added services for members, including access to online doctors ' priority to answer rights, and more personalized test sheets and dietary guidelines.

At present, the spring rain Palm Doctor has received multiple rounds of financing, but the business model of the State of exploration and not smooth. For the user to obtain the medical diagnosis Service is free mode, through the membership system to charge. This pattern has the development bottleneck, the doctor's diagnosis and the examination list involves the specialized knowledge, is not easy to define.

In January 2012 on the line of the aunt of the application to go is the vertical route of female health care. It is learned that aunt, through the collection of female user physiological data analysis, to provide users with health advice. It is learned that aunt will be around the health service positioning to do value-added services.

Did you get a million-dollar B-round financing of Sequoia Capital last September? According to Enfodesk, "China Women's tools App market monthly monitoring Report January 2014" data shows that as of January 2014, the app cumulative users far more than other female tool app.

September 2013, Sugar Protection technology access to innovative workshops and the three Connaught biological 3 million Yuan Angel round investment. Li Chengzhi said that not only to make a medical hardware, but also hope that sugar nurse mobile blood glucose meter can become a medical data service platform, to do the user's personalized blood sugar housekeeper.

In the profit model, the spring Rain Palm Doctor is through the membership system, big aunt is mainly advertising and flow replacement, and sugar nurses through the sale of blood glucose meter test strip to profitability. It is reported that sugar nurses will be in the future of mobile phone applications open shop links, sales strips.

As of press, sugar nurses in less than 20 days, in the domestic public network "roll Call time" raised to 118,000 yuan of funds. The future will also be through the electric business website, offline stores and operators and other channels for sales.

The threshold and risk of mobile medical care

The mobile medical portal is an area where resource and technology drivers are demanding. Spring Rain handheld doctor, good doctor online belongs to the doctor entrance, through the integration of the value chain in the central position of the doctor's resources to attract users online, to seek diagnostic services.

Companies entering the sector require simultaneous integration of medical and mobile Internet resources, a cross-border not a simple blend. Many companies tend to provide health and medical services to ordinary users, this part of the user base on the larger first. and professional medical diagnosis and monitoring business, once involved in medical malpractice, will assume a greater legal responsibility, which is to discourage many entrepreneurs one of the factors.

The industry has four main entrances: professionals, institutions, hardware and public access, DR2 said. These portals are greatly overlapping, and the project operations are generally treated as holistic. And the hospital is a resource-driven, the entrants need to have a large number of industrial resources, as well as management and technical reserves, such as a full range of resource integration capabilities.

Medical hardware, the mobile medical service providers through mobile phone applications, wearable devices, external hardware access. Hardware, like smartphones, is designed to balance performance and power consumption; software, strive to provide professional, practical, intimate medical services, while operating large data or personalized data services.

At present, the medical hardware can provide the main medical services such as data measurement and disease monitoring, mobile phone application more involved in doctor diagnosis and health knowledge services and other links. According to the aforementioned GVR report, the disease monitoring service will occupy the advantage, but also the mobile health market is the fastest growing area of growth. It is expected that between 2014 and 2020, its composite annual growth rate is expected to reach 50%.

And startups that are involved in both medical hardware and mobile apps are the sugar-and-protect technology that makes the smart blood glucose meter, which provides data measurement, monitoring, and sharing services for people with diabetes. In February this year, sugar nurses received the CFDA medical Device license approved by the FDA for clinical testing, which is the first in medical software and hardware.

When talking about the threshold of mobile medicine, Li Chengzhi said to Sina technology, one is the government's regulatory threshold, the other is the higher technical threshold. For example, Sphygmomanometer is an electronic product easier to produce and measure, but the blood glucose meter design to biochemistry, think net will encounter the technical threshold. He admitted that the main behind is the three Connaught Biological health care resources in the integration and technical support, but also a bullish investor.

is not only the government regulation and the technical threshold, the medical hardware sale channel aspect needs the deep industrial chain resources. Li Chengzhi has been in Motorola mobile phone research and development, production, sales and other supply chain management experience, for him to engage in hardware entrepreneurship laid the foundation. At the same time, the three Connaught Biological medical resources, also make its products in the medical resources accumulation has landed, so as to avoid too many detours.

At present, sugar nurse blood glucose meter is in the public-raised platform for the pre-sale. Li Chengzhi said, on the one hand, the three Connaught biological in the country 20,000 medical device stores to provide sales support, on the other hand and jingdong (rolling information) cooperation, sales of its medical hardware products. At the same time will consider and operators to cooperate, tying hardware products, through the test paper into.

2014 will be a fast-moving year for medical hardware. According to media reports, the Chinese Pharmaceutical Materials Association issued the "2013 China Medical Internet Development Report" shows that 2013 China Mobile medical market size reached 2.34 billion yuan, compared to 2012 1.86 billion yuan growth of nearly 26%.

Industry analysts believe that the dynamic medical needs, diagnosis and treatment efficiency needs to be improved and national policy incentives, will be in 2014 to allow mobile medicine in the industry will be quickly popularized.

But this new opportunity also carries risks. Li Chengzhi is talking to investors about a round of financing, but he says it is not about valuations but about the funds that will be safe to operate in the next year or two. "After all, this industry has a risk, start early not necessarily results, some industries need to slowly see, not immediately can make money, now the profit model is not mature." "He said frankly.

"Health mobile medicine is not necessarily as beautiful as it may seem, and not necessarily as fast as it is," he said. "he added.

Where is the risk? On the one hand, the medical industry under government supervision, sales of medical devices need clinical testing to pass, in order to obtain national certification; On the other hand, the medical hardware product itself has the problem of acceptability, especially the start-up enterprise faces the high cost of education.

Why do users buy? How many just need to be in there? is the patient or the patient concerned the target user? How much risk can a company take? These are the "gold diggers" who want to enter the mobile medical field, or are starting a business, and need to consider the problem.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)