Serving more than 1,000 high-end customers, including high-end hospital customers, high-end scientific research institutes, third-party clinical inspection centers, biological reagent companies and pharmaceutical companies, revenue has continued to grow significantly since 2015, with a revenue growth rate of up to 30% in 2021. This is the answer sheet handed over by Tangier in China's digital pathology industry for 23 years.
Tangier was established in 1999, its operating brands include Hungarian digital pathology brand 3DHISTECH, Danish pathology image analysis company VISIOPHR (micro-vision intelligence), Italian conventional pathology high-quality product DIAPATH (Dipez), Sino-Hungarian joint venture brand Sriti digital medical, domestic brand Zhiying Medical WINMEDIC, in China's digital pathology market for a long time, the high-end market and research market leader.
Over the years, China's digital pathology industry has undergone several changes, and the product functions and forms have undergone great changes in the earlier stages, but Tangier has always maintained a strong vitality to meet the needs of customers at different stages of purchasing digital pathology products. Arterial Network and Tangier Executive Deputy General Manager Mr. Guan Yumeng had a dialogue to understand how Tangier relies on high-performance products and long-term layout to win the favor of customers in many fields.
For more than 20 years, it has met the needs of different stages of pathology
China's digital pathology industry started around 2010, ushered in rapid development in 2015, and is currently in a period of prosperity. At different times, the demand for digital pathology products in hospitals varies greatly. Guan Yumeng said: "Tangier accompanied the growth of China's digital pathology, pursuing the concept of long-termism, in all stages of digital pathology development, you can see the figure of Tangier products in the market. ”
2007-2013 is the early stage of digital pathology, remote consultation of difficult slices is the most important use scenario, hospitals have low awareness of high-end digital pathology systems, and only a few top three hospitals buy it. Tangier is one of the first companies to provide hospitals with digital pathology slide scanning, remote consultation, and database management software systems.
Around 2015, with the improvement of policies and hospitals' awareness and attention to digital pathology, hospital-related investment increased, and digital pathology entered a period of rapid development, and the hospital's demand for digital pathology products expanded from remote consultation to digital scanning teaching and scientific research analysis of typical and difficult pathological slices. In response to the upgrading of hospital needs, Tangier has also launched auxiliary analysis software for teaching and scientific research.
After 2017, with the wave of localization and the popularity of AI and big data, the rise of AI pathology, the demand for clinical use expanded to AI pathology assisted diagnosis, and more digital pathology manufacturers began to actively participate in the construction of AI pathology. Tangier has also actively intervened in the localization R&D layout and AI pathology field, and incubated the domestic digital pathology brand Zhiying Medicine.
"AI pathology products are admitted to the hospital through sales models, technical services and even leasing, so AI pathology manufacturers need to choose digital pathology scanner manufacturers with high cost performance to cooperate." Zhiying medical product quality benchmark imported products, and has significant cost advantages, has become the preferred partner of a number of AI pathology manufacturers. ”
Zhiying Medical Digital Pathology Solution
Since 2019, it is in the full digital stage of pathology. The full digitization of pathology belongs to a section of the smart hospital, which mainly includes two parts, one is that the conventional microscope diagnosis method is completely replaced by digital reading, and the other is that the intelligent system is included in the pathological diagnosis. More and more hospitals have begun to build fully digital pathology departments, driving manufacturers to continuously improve their digital pathology product lines.
In the department of all-digital pathology, the hospital pathology work has four characteristics, one is that the hospital needs to convert the slide information into digital information more quickly, and the demand for digital pathology slide scanners will increase significantly; the second is to rely on full digitization to carry out sub-specialty distribution, so that pathologists can focus on the direction they are better at and improve diagnostic efficiency; the third is to change the pathological data storage method from slide storage to cloud storage to help AI pathology; the fourth is to liberate pathologists, so that pathologists can make pathological diagnosis anytime, anywhere, through mobile phones and other mobile devices.
Digital Pathology Applications
In general, in the era of all-digital pathology, hospitals naturally put forward higher requirements for digital pathology manufacturers, including product stability and layout integrity. It is reported that most domestic enterprises are gathered in a single chain such as digital slice scanning, and very few companies have the ability to provide complete and all-digital pathology solutions, represented by Tangier. One-stop pathology digital solutions have become Tangier's core strength.
Rapidly upgrade and open up the all-digital chain of pathology
"In response to the hospital's constant burst of all-digital construction needs for pathology, Tangier quickly upgraded and iterated." Guan Yumeng told arterial network.
For example, in response to the timeliness requirements, Tangier solves the problem of technical convergence in the process of pathological production to digital slice scanning, eliminating the need for manual import, and can be directly imported into digital scanning equipment after dyeing and sealing. In view of the needs of whole-process digitalization and smart pathology, Tangier has developed more supporting software products, such as pathological information management system, pathological whole-process management and quality control system, medical image transmission and consultation system, slice library management system, and medical morphology virtual simulation teaching system.
In addition, it should be noted that the daily number of specimens in large tertiary hospitals exceeds 5,000, which requires long-term and high-load use, so an important prerequisite for achieving full digitization of pathology is the stability of digital pathology slice scanners. 3DHISTECH introduced by Tangier has more than 20 years of accumulation in the digital pathology industry, and its digital pathology slice scanner has the characteristics of high stability, low failure rate and high image quality, which is suitable for high load operation, which is an important support for the pathology department to achieve full digitization.
Now, Tangier has opened up the whole chain and formed a complete digital pathology solution, including registration, embedding, film production, digital scanning, storage, reading, and reporting.
Among them, in the production process, Tangier introduced the Italian DIAPATH to realize the automation and standardization of the whole process of pathological film production, including tissue processing, embedding, slicing, dyeing and film sealing.
In the section scanning process, Tangier introduced 3DHISTECH, and incubated the domestic brand Zhiying Medicine, which can provide a variety of models, multiple fluxes, different cost budgets, and digital slide scanners with brightfield scanning, fluorescence scanning, FISH image scanning and other functions, which meet the different needs of different levels of hospitals.
In the digital diagnosis link, Tangier relies on the information management system and ultra-high resolution image quality to help doctors digitally read and diagnose; in the storage link, Tangier and the united Nations large cloud storage company upload all the slices to the cloud storage.
Tangier offers digital solutions for pathology
At present, Tangier serves hundreds of hospitals, mainly tertiary hospitals, including Peking Union Medical College Hospital, Fudan University Affiliated Cancer Hospital, Peking University Cancer Hospital, Peking University First Hospital, Fuwai Hospital of Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing Anzhen Hospital affiliated to Capital Medical University, Beijing Tsinghua Changgeng Hospital affiliated to Tsinghua University, Guangdong Provincial People's Hospital, Third Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University, Queen Mary Hospital of Hong Kong, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital of Fudan University, First Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, and Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital The southwest hospital of the Army Military Medical University, Xiangya Hospital, the Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University and many other tertiary hospitals, the market share of digital pathology products is leading in high-end hospitals, and it has participated in the construction of all-digital pathology departments in many hospitals such as Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Shanghai Zhongshan Hospital, and Zhongshan People's Hospital.
Just recently, Tangier's digital pathology system was about to be installed at Zhongshan People's Hospital. Zhongshan People's Hospital is building a fully digital pathology smart department, Tangier customized a full set of pathology all-digital solutions, including digital diagnosis and digital reading, providing a variety of models of digital scanners for customers to choose, while meeting the needs of customers for brightfield scanning, fluorescence scanning, FISH image scanning.
Diversified and in-depth products, covering multiple types of customers
In addition to hundreds of hospitals, Tangier has also served more than 100 third-party clinical inspection centers including Dean Diagnostics, Adikang, Huayinkang Medical, ABCAM, Sino-US Crown, Wuhan Saiwei Biology, and more than 100 third-party clinical examination centers and biological reagent research and development enterprises, pharmaceutical companies, CRO companies, etc.
"In the digital pathology industry, there are very few companies that can cover multiple types of customers at the same time, because the needs of different types of customers for digital pathology products are very different."
For the clinical system, the first requirement for digital pathology is compliance, and there is a hard threshold for qualification. The needs of scientific research application customers are high-end and professional. Guan Yumeng said that more than 50% of scientific research customers require more functions such as fluorescence scanning and quantitative analysis, and Tangier's digital scanning microbiograph is the best choice.
In addition, the demand for digital pathology image analysis software from scientific research customers is very strong. Tangier has introduced the full line of AI digital pathology quantitative analysis software of the Danish company VISIOPHRM (Micro Vision Intelligence) to help customers apply digital images in depth. The software platform contains artificial intelligence deep learning Author module can be trained to create personalized analysis APP module, can help users to train their own to establish customized module functions, while containing 120+ AI-based training mature ready-to-use APP modules, according to the disease can be divided into more than 150 kinds of analysis modules, to meet the needs of personalized analysis in various fields of biology and medicine.
In the field of third-party technical services and biological companies, the requirements for digital pathology products are high-quality images and complete slice data analysis products. In this market, Tangier has cooperated with Wuhan SaiweiEr Biology for 7 years, and the installed capacity of the national branch laboratory of Wuhan Saiwei Biology alone has reached nearly 50 units.
Guan Yumeng said: "The key to Tangier's ability to cover multiple types of customers lies in product diversification and the deepening of individual product applications. It can be said that whether it is a high-end tertiary hospital, a grass-roots hospital, a scientific research institute, a third-party inspection center or a technical service enterprise, Tangier can provide rich, complete and high-performance digital pathology products. ”
In terms of product diversification and depth, Tangier continues to exert efforts. For example, in 2020, Tangier and 3DHISTECH established a joint venture in China, Shandong Sriti Medical Technology Co., Ltd., to explore the localization of international technology in China. Under the background of policy support for national brands and AI pathology, Zhiying Medicine was incubated.
Guan Yumeng judged: "In the future, the hospital's demand for digital pathology products will be mainly reflected in two aspects, one is to improve the efficiency of pathology with the help of more AI technology, and the other is the cloudification of pathology diagnosis." The future needs of customers such as scientific research and university teaching are reflected in more refined and deepened applications. "Next, Tangier will rely on the accurate grasp of the pulse of the development of China's digital pathology industry, independent research and development, import and introduction of two lines in parallel, product diversification and in-depth layout, tangier will be built into a supplier of integrated digital pathology solutions, and promote and lead the high-quality and high-speed development of the pathology industry."