The host, Jung Ming Xu (Assistant General Manager, Beijing Financial Street Capital), observed that, although the digitalization stemming from AI and Big Data in the healthcare industry has been presenting exciting entry points for PEs, it is still hard to say that the healthcare industry will save itself from the approaching capital winter. "Global healthcare PE investments have slumped, compared to the Q3 of 2018, and it is hard to argue that the healthcare PE will the oasis in the desert,” he concluded.  

The healthcare session of the WIM Salon was held in EqualOcean's office in Beijing with guests from Beijing's burgeoning healthcare startup scene and over 50 participants from different subsectors of health tech. 

Key takeaways from the event

“The annual growth rate of medical insurance purchases has been around 35% since 2015; it is going to surpass auto-related insurance in two years, becoming the second largest after housing insurance,” said Peng Xuan, Co-CEO of Yuanxin Huibao. “The digitalization trend will further increase dependency on medical insurance because the mistakes of AI can only be compensated for by a sophisticated new generation of medical insurance,” he added.  

“Around 25% of the tertiary hospitals in China have to handle more than half of the patient flow,” said Wang Xiao, Vice President and Product Marketing Director of Shukun Technology. He sees AI and cloud as the remedies of China's structural problems in healthcare. "The number of consultations done by a particular hospital can be multiplied two to three-fold thanks to AI. This can help the Chinese healthcare system to relieve excess demand," he said. 

Tu Weiwei focused on China's unequally distributed resources in healthcare and proposed remote cloud-based consultancies as a solution. “Doctors are physically limited, but AI is not,” said the Head of Healthcare Business of 4Paradigm. “By integrating the existing resources of the hospitals through technical means and sharing the data analysis results among hospitals on the premise of ensuring the privacy of patients, we can accurately depict a patient’s physical condition," he added. 

WIM Salon X Beijing is a technology and innovation event organized by EqualOcean. We invite outstanding representatives with sophisticated tech and industrial backgrounds, as well as investment organizations, to explore cutting-edge technologies. We are aligned with EqualOcean’s WIM2019 conference which will gather 6,000 innovators (entrepreneurs, investors, influencers) from all around the world.

The event was part of a series of events. In the next event, Heytea, SandStar and Cheers will join the WIM Salon and discuss the foreseeable 'big bang' in China's consumer market on October 27th. 

Company executives, corporate leaders and start-up representatives who are interested in learning more about China's new consumer market are invited to join the Salon.