From lab to the clinic: sharing innovations and success
Our human body is built to move: we can easily make fluid motions with over 360 joints and about 700 skeletal muscles inside us.
However, sometimes people break their legs due to intensive sports or experience pains in their bones, joints and even spines because of improper use over a long period of time.
You go to see a doctor who recommends X-rays, a CT scan or magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and during these procedures you're told not to move your body.
Have you ever wondered if these imaging methods are the best diagnostic tools for patients and clinicians?
Dr Tsai Tsung-Yuan, an entrepreneur with a doctorate in biomedical engineering from a Taiwan University and Imperial College London, wants to develop new methods.
He and his firm, Shanghai TAOiMAGE Medical Technology Co, are employing digital medical approaches to develop a joint-dynamic-function evaluation system.
With its digital biplanar X-ray imaging system, which can perform four-dimensional (4D) in-vivo function evaluations of bones and joints, patients can achieve functional positioning and move themselves during procedures.
TAOiMAGE's digital biplanar X-ray imaging system
Thanks to this new technology, the impact of diseases on joint function will be truly quantified and clarified, Tsai told Shanghai Daily.
It is the world's first weight-bearing, dual-plane, full-length, 4D X-ray imaging system. Its 4D image reconstruction will assist clinicians in constructing tailored and patient-specific treatment programs, according to Tsai.
TAOiMAGE has won awards as a member of the biomedical growth team at the 10th China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition.
Jointly organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the Cyberspace Administration of China and the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, the event has the highest specification, the largest scale and the widest coverage for the circle of innovation and entrepreneurship.
TAOiMAGE was selected from around 5,000 biomedical enterprises nationwide and was among the 61 firms representing Shanghai to compete in the event.
TAOiMAGE developed the world's first weight-bearing, dual-plane, full-length, 4D X-ray imaging system.
"Boston is known as the Silicon Valley of biomedicine in the United States. I learned a lot about innovation and entrepreneurship there," Tsai said.
He credits his roommate in Boston, Dr Wang Shaobai, who returned to Shanghai to advance his career development, for encouraging him to start his business here, as well as academician Dai Kerong, who recruited him to do research at top universities and tertiary hospitals in the area.
The two former roommates co-founded TAOiMAGE, and Tsai serves as its managing director.
Other big selling points for Shanghai and the greater Yangtze River Delta are business-friendly government policies and the orthopedic-medical-device cluster that exists here.
"Shanghai enables us to transform the digital medical technology we've developed in the laboratory into actual products, so that frontline doctors and patients can benefit from these innovative products," Tsai said.
Dr Tsai Tsung-Yuan (left) and Dr Wang Shaobai – co-founders of TAOiMAGE
More people with rich overseas academic and research experience like Tsai and Wang are returning from abroad to China to start businesses and create local digital health innovations.
Established global players like Medtronic are taking notice of the digital health industry's rising tide in China.
Medtronic Chief Executive Geoff Martha said the company's competitors are from places like China, where venture capital and government support are readily available to help local companies expand and compete on a global level.
A leading global health-care company for close to 75 years, Ireland-based Medtronic is moving beyond devices via a rebranding effort that emphasizes innovation.
Local tech startups and multinational corporations can complement one another in the innovation ecosystem, and, in fact, they need each other, TAOiMAGE's Tsai said.
Consequently, the local government is building platforms to facilitate better partnerships between the two.
The Medtronic Digital Health Innovation Competition, initiated by the Shanghai Technology Innovation Center (STIC) and Medtronic China, is a perfect example.
Eight finalists made presentations to conference participants and a panel of six judges consisting of key opinion leaders within China's medical tech sector.
TAOiMAGE took home first prize in the competition, credited for its dedication to the early detection, diagnosis and treatment of orthopedic ailments.
TAOiMAGE came in first in the Medtronic Digital Health Innovation Competition.
Established in 1988, STIC is a non-profit, public science and technology service organization under the umbrella of the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission.
Dedicated to helping startups prosper and succeed, it is also a national high-tech innovation service center certified by China's Ministry of Science and Technology.
The Medtronic Digital Health Innovation Competition is also one of the unique "Startup in Shanghai" activities, a flagship event designed to attract entrepreneurs from home and abroad to start businesses here.
"Biomedicine, along with integrated circuits and artificial intelligence, are the three key areas and major fields Shanghai will prioritize during the 14th Five-Year Plan period," said Huang Lihong, STIC deputy director.
The competition, Huang added, is "a meaningful attempt" to nurture local innovation by leveraging the experience and expertise of top companies in the global medical technology industry.
Prior to the competition, Medtronic and STIC held a two-day innovation accelerator camp to provide in-depth guidance to startups on how to speed up the commercialization of their products.
Huang Lihong, deputy director of the Shanghai Technology Innovation Center
The top three winners have the opportunity to discuss future cooperation with the Medtronic MedTech Innovation Accelerator, an early-stage business accelerator founded in Shanghai in 2019 to empower local medical tech innovation.
To date, three Chinese medical startups have signed contracts with the accelerator, according to Medtronic.
Also, the medical device giant created a venture capital fund focused on China.
"Five years ago, we would be asked by overseas colleagues, 'Is there really innovation in China?'" recalled Noah Friedman, vice president of strategy, business intelligence & digital market development at Medtronic China.
"We don't get that anymore. Now the question is, what is the innovation in China?"
New medical solutions are emerging in technologies that treat specific diseases with high incidence rates in China, cost-effective therapies that address high hospital throughput and patient volume, and innovative digital solutions that cater to diagnoses, treatments and disease management, according to Friedman.
For local entrepreneurs, Medtronic China said it can bring them investments, sales channels, medical affairs capabilities, among others.
However, what may be more valuable is the company's global expertise and resources, as some local enterprises eye future growth beyond China, Friedman said.
In the past five years, Medtronic has invested more than US$300 million in China in more than 20 planned and launched localization projects, most of which are in Shanghai, a city regarded by the company as "one of the most innovative Chinese regions" in health-care development.
Noah Friedman, vice president of strategy, business Intelligence & digital market development at Medtronic China
"As the world's largest medical technology company, Medtronic is far ahead of startups in terms of capital, technology, market channels and international experience," Tsai said.
He added that he hopes through partnerships with the Medtronic, the speed of product development and implementation at innovative local companies can be accelerated, and "a better synergystic effect" can be formed via organic collaboration with Medtronic-related products.
TAOiMAGE's first-generation product now has a medical device registration certificate and production license, and the company expects more than 10 sets of their digital biplanar X-ray imaging systems will be sold this year.
But their ambition goes beyond that.
The firm plans to develop an artificial intelligence diagnostic system to reduce the learning curve for physicians and narrow the gap in medical resources between regions.
"The clinical experience gained through medicine can be detracted or biased by one's memory or judgment, but objective medical evidence preserved in digital medicine will not be lost over time," Tsai said.
For other tech startups seeking to develop products and solutions to improve clinical care and health, his advice is "to be closely integrated" with frontline clinical work and explore unmet clinical needs.
Tsai is also a tenured associate professor of biomedical engineering at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a researcher at Shanghai Ninth People's Hospital's Department of Orthopedics.
He has published more than 100 Science Citation Index papers and over 200 international conference papers.
