Liang Yaoming of Jinyu Medicine: Science and technology for good, opening up a broad space for the innovation and development of China's medical examination technology

On April 12, 2024 local time, at the welcome ceremony of the 2024 Harvard China Forum, Liang Yaoming, founder, chairman and CEO of Jinyu Medical, China's largest third-party medical inspection organization, delivered a keynote speech.

Liang Yaoming shared the stories of three enterprise developments, explaining the development path and vision of the enterprise from three aspects: the origin of Jinyu Medical, how to deepen the professional field, and how to innovate through the integration of biotechnology and digital technology.

First of all, Liang Yaoming said, "A truly valuable entrepreneurship should start from truly solving social pain points". Liang Yaoming mentioned that he started his career at Guangzhou Medical University and then chose to stay and work. The turning point in his career stemmed from the dilemma of an old classmate who lacked basic testing to effectively diagnose and treat his disease. This sparked the idea of creating a third-party medical testing service.

Secondly, Liang Yaoming introduced in detail the development process of Jinyu Medical, how to promote the innovation of service model and the continuous evolution of the enterprise by combining the deep cultivation of the professional field and the combination of new technologies such as informatization. In terms of technological innovation, Liang Yaoming elaborated on how to help change the diagnostic environment of primary hospitals through remote pathology diagnosis services, especially in the absence of pathologists, through the remote consultation platform, to ensure fast and accurate diagnosis.

"According to the WHO standard, there needs to be one pathologist for every 100 beds, and China needs about 100,000 pathologists. However, due to various reasons, there are only about 17,000 pathologists in China, and there is a shortage of grassroots doctors. The launch of Jinyu Remote Pathology Collaboration Network is to solve the dilemma of scarcity of pathologists, especially grassroots pathologists, through the latest service model of 'doctor sharing' by combining Internet technology. Similar to Ji'an, Jinyu has built more than 450 digital pathology service outlets across the country, connecting more than 15,000 grassroots hospitals, completing nearly 80,000 cases of 'intraoperative freezing' services, nearly 200,000 cases of digital pathology services and more than 10 million cases of pathology services every year. That is to say, in the "Internet +" era, not only can car sharing, accommodation sharing, knowledge sharing, and even pathologists can be shared. ”

Finally, Leung emphasized the importance of the integration of information technology and life science technology, and how to promote precision diagnosis and inclusive healthcare through this convergence and innovation.

"At present, the number of testing items that can be carried out in China's general tertiary hospitals is 1,000-1,200, while Jinyu has reached 4,000. The more tests there are, the lower the likelihood of missed and misdiagnosed. This also provides a greater boost for the development of precision medicine and inclusive medicine. ”

In the conclusion, Liang Yaoming said that China's proposal to promote the trend of 'treatment-centered' to 'people's health-centered', coupled with the rapid development of biotechnology and artificial intelligence, is opening up more room for the growth of the medical examination industry, and called on more like-minded young students to join in.

Attached is a transcript of Liang Yaoming's speech:

Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon, Harvard students.

I am Liang Yaoming, the founder, chairman and CEO of Guangzhou Jinyu Medical Laboratory Group. It is an honor to address the Harvard China Forum. Although this is the first time I have stood on this podium, I have been associated with Harvard for more than 10 years, especially with Harvard Medical School. Because of the industry I am in, I have visited many times, and even had in-depth contact. I really like the humid air of Boston.

When it comes to our industry, you may have heard of QUEST and LabCorp, both of which are excellent medical laboratories in the United States. Of course, compared with these excellent international peers, Golden Mile started relatively late. This year marks our 30th anniversary.

In the mid-90s of last century, there was no third-party medical testing industry in China. When we started Golden Mile at that time, we inadvertently started a whole new industry in China. So, why did we cut into this space?

I graduated from Guangzhou Medical University with a degree in clinical medicine. After graduating, most of my classmates went to the hospital to become doctors, but I chose to stay on and work. I still vividly remember that a few years after graduation, an old classmate who worked in a grassroots hospital and had just finished his studies at Guangzhou University Hospital came to me and said, "I won't see a doctor anymore." I think it's strange to say that you just finished your studies, and you should be at a higher level. He said that when studying in a large hospital, there are many medical testing methods, but when he returns to the grassroots level, because of the lack of technology, equipment and talents, many tests and pathologies cannot be carried out.

In order to help this old classmate, I began to use my work to help him carry out some sporadic testing and pathology services. In this process, I also began to think that without the support of testing, it means that doctors cannot see patients accurately, and such pain points are estimated to be common among grassroots doctors. Is there a way to help more doctors?

After nearly two years of exploration, we formally proposed to the school that we hope to set up a medical testing center to specialize in medical testing outsourcing services.

This was the beginning of our business – starting from the original intention of "helping doctors to see better diseases". As a result, we are also fortunate to have opened a precedent in the industry of third-party medical testing and pathology services in China. In 2001, when I was studying for an EMBA at the National University of Singapore, the teaching case of QUEST in the United States completely opened my mind. It turns out that the third-party medical examination industry has been quite mature in the world. Thanks to this study, I was more determined to innovate the business model of medical examination outsourcing services to help solve the problem of equalization of medical resources in China at that time, and pursue it as a lifelong career.

Today, Jinyu is the largest third-party medical inspection organization in China. We serve more than two-thirds of China's medical institutions, covering more than 90% of China's population.

This is the first story I want to tell today, a truly valuable entrepreneurship starts from truly solving social pain points.

The second story I want to tell is how we combine new technologies such as informatization to promote service model innovation and the continuous evolution of enterprises.

Not long ago, a county-level hospital in Ji'an, Jiangxi Province, in central China, was performing a tumor removal operation on a patient. The benign and malignant nature of the tumor is the key to determining the scope and method of surgical resection. To distinguish between benign and malignant, pathology is the gold standard. At that time, the patient's tumor tissue was cut out and sent to the hospital's pathology center as soon as possible. Like most grassroots hospitals in China, this one does not have pathologists. So how did they solve this diagnostic problem?

The process is not complicated. They made a digital picture of the tissue specimen with a dedicated scanner and uploaded it to a dedicated remote digital pathology web platform. In this way, the pathologists of Jinyu in Guangzhou, the pathologists of Jiangxi Provincial People's Hospital in Nanchang and the pathologists of Nanchang University can jointly consult through the online platform. After more than 20 minutes, the experts issued a diagnostic report. According to the results of the report, the surgeon determined the surgical plan in time.

This technique has a technical term called intraoperative cryodiagnosis. Throughout the teleconsultation, the patient is always on the operating table, and the pathologist is by his side. The key to this is the largest remote pathology collaboration network in China that Golden Mile built in 2017. Before joining the pathology network, patients from the county hospital in Ji'an either went to a large hospital in Nanchang, the provincial capital, 100 kilometers away, or after the local surgery, the pathology samples were sent to a hospital in a big city for testing, and when the results came out, the hospital decided on the next treatment plan.

According to the WHO standard, there needs to be one pathologist for every 100 beds, and China needs about 100,000 pathologists. However, due to various reasons, there are only about 17,000 pathologists in China, and there is a shortage of grassroots doctors.

The launch of Jinyu Remote Pathology Collaboration Network is to solve the dilemma of scarcity of pathologists, especially grassroots pathologists, through the latest service model of "doctor sharing" by combining Internet technology. Similar to Ji'an, Jinyu has built more than 450 digital pathology service outlets across the country, connecting more than 15,000 grassroots hospitals, completing nearly 80,000 cases of "intraoperative freezing" services every year, nearly 200,000 cases of digital pathology services and more than 10 million cases of pathology services every year. That is to say, in the "Internet +" era, not only can car sharing, accommodation sharing, knowledge sharing, and even pathologists can be shared.

In the third story, I would like to talk about how we can help precision diagnosis and inclusive medical care through the integration and innovation of biotechnology and digital technology, and realize the ultimate value of our enterprise development.

At the end of last year, a 2-year-old girl in Zhejiang Province traveled to more than a dozen departments in hospitals in Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou and other places, and did all the recommended tests, but still could not find the cause. In January this year, through the latest testing project of Jinyu and the Children's Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang University School of Medicine, the girl was diagnosed with SMA (spinal muscular atrophy), and compared with the previous testing, the diagnosis time was shortened from half a month to 1 day, which is faster and more accurate.

In China, SMA is the "number one killer" of fatal genetic diseases in infants and young children under 2 years of age, and is also known as "a common disease among rare diseases". In 2022, drugs for the treatment of SMA were officially included in China's medical insurance. Under the premise that there is a drug to treat, it is of great significance for children to be diagnosed faster and more accurately.

This is just one ordinary case of Golden Mile helping to diagnose rare diseases in China.

"Difficult to diagnose and treat" is a typical feature of rare diseases, which brings great suffering to patients and their families. There are more than 7,000 confirmed rare diseases in the world, and 207 are in China's official catalogue, and Jinyu can carry out more than 600 rare disease testing projects, with a total of more than 113,000 positive cases of rare diseases.

As one of the earliest medical institutions in China to provide comprehensive testing services for patients with rare diseases, Jinyu Medical is taking advantage of the integration of multiple technology platforms, combining the latest achievements in biotechnology and artificial intelligence development, and continuing to promote key technological innovation to help clinically solve accurate diagnosis problems such as incurable diseases and rare diseases.

At present, there are 1,000-1,200 tests that can be carried out in China's general tertiary hospitals, while Jinyu has reached 4,000. The more tests there are, the lower the likelihood of missed and misdiagnosed. This also provides a greater boost for the development of precision medicine and inclusive medicine.

About eight years ago, China proposed to move from "treatment-centered" to "people's health-centered". This transformation is also advocating early screening, early diagnosis, and early intervention, which is conducive to better coping with the challenges of an aging society and promoting high-quality population development. Under this trend, coupled with the rapid development of biotechnology and artificial intelligence, it is opening up more room for growth in the medical examination industry.

Jinyu has been committed to exploring the integration and innovation of biotechnology and a new generation of information technology, based on its own massive data and medical expert resources, to further help clinical precision diagnosis and treatment and wider public health prevention and control, through more efficient, intelligent and inclusive medical services, to solve the dilemma of scarce medical resources with socialized services.

Chinese often say: "Harmony is precious, goodness is the foundation". Jinyu Medicine was born because of goodness, and it has come all the way to today. Frankly speaking, over the years, we have maintained close exchanges with our American counterparts and kept pace with the international advanced frontiers. Because we know that the work we're doing is helping to improve the health and well-being of a country that accounts for 18% of the world's population. We always believe that as long as we adhere to science and technology for good, focus on professionalism, and continue to introduce appropriate technology, it will bring broad prospects for the innovation and development of China's medical examination technology.

Finally, make another advertisement, and look forward to more like-minded friends to join us! I wish this forum a complete success! Thank you!

(Sina Finance North America Station Kang Road, intern Jin Dian from Boston)