How should domestic instrument manufacturers exert their strength in the wave of "precision medicine"

    On January 20, 2015, US President Obama proposed the "Precision Medicine Plan" in his State of the Union Address, hoping that precision medicine could lead a new era of medicine. For a time, "precision medicine" became a hot topic covering the world, and caused a surge in the pharmaceutical and health industry market. Soon, China also proposed its own plan, and in March 2016, it officially included precision medicine in the "13th Five-Year Plan", thus opening the prelude to China's precision medicine wave. Subsequently, many domestic capitals began to lay out precision medicine.

　　As an important technical support for precision medicine, the development of related instruments and their industries has also attracted much attention. Due to the sluggish growth of traditional industries (such as metallurgy, petrochemicals, building materials, etc.) in recent years, many scientific instrument companies have naturally turned their attention to "precision medicine", a hot field with great development potential. Bio-Bio Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Bio-Bio) can be regarded as one of the "pioneers" in this field in China. Recently, during the interval of attending the 9th China Bio-Industry Conference and the first "China Optical Valley" International Bio-Health Industry Expo, the editor had the honor to interview Mr. Xu Junquan, President of Beijing Bio-Bio Jingdian Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Bio-Bio Jingdian), a core subsidiary of Bio-Bio, to listen to his interpretation of the long-term impact of "precision medicine" on the scientific instrument industry, as well as Bio-Bio Jingdian's own response strategy.

　　Mr. Xu Junquan, President of Beijing Bio-Gene Biotech Co., Ltd.

　　Precision medicine——radiating multidisciplinary development

　　Editor: First of all, could you please briefly talk about your views on "precision medicine"?

　　Xu Junquan: A simple interpretation of "precision medicine" is accurate diagnosis plus accurate treatment. Precision medicine is very similar to the personalized medicine we talked about before, that is, everyone can get accurate treatment when they are sick. How to achieve accurate treatment? First of all, there must be an accurate diagnosis, what is the disease, how is the condition, and what is the cause of the disease. Based on this accurate diagnosis result, the doctor can treat it very accurately. Simply put, the more you know about the condition, the better the treatment plan can be given by the doctor.

　　Editor: What impact do you think the inclusion of “precision medicine” in the 13th Five-Year Plan will have on the future instrument industry?

　　Xu Junquan: The medical diagnosis we are talking about can be roughly divided into two aspects. One is the test items based on blood, molecules, immunity, etc., and the other diagnostic method is imaging. Therefore, after the proposal of precision medicine, it mainly involves these two aspects of technology, namely molecular diagnostic technology and imaging technology. The coordinated development of these two technologies may promote more accurate and efficient clinical diagnosis and treatment, which will inevitably put forward higher requirements for related supporting instruments and equipment. In terms of domestic demand, many instruments need to be localized, and at the same time, they must track the international advanced level and even surpass the foreign level.

　　In our opinion, clinical diagnosis requires the overall integration of multiple technologies. Therefore, when clinical needs are raised, higher requirements are not only placed on biomedical technology, but also on instruments and even the entire information technology, software, big data, etc. Only when these technologies are simultaneously improved to a certain level, clinical diagnosis will enter the next breakthrough. A requirement raised from medicine may radiate to multiple disciplines, and each discipline will be pushed forward by this force, rather than simply being changed by a breakthrough in medicine or biology.

　　In clinical diagnosis, more discussions should be made about the combination of multiple indicators and multiple technologies. In the future, it is possible to connect multiple detection technologies such as blood tests, immunology, and imaging to achieve automation and intelligence on each platform, which can reduce manual interpretation, that is, reduce a part of the labor force. For example, there is a shortage of pathologists in clinical diagnosis at present, because pathological sections need professional doctors to look at them one by one. In the future, it is very likely that intelligent interpretation can be achieved by supporting instruments.

    Subdivided fields - from point to surface, in-depth cultivation

　　Editor: In view of the market opportunities that "precision medicine " may bring, which application segments will Bio-Jingdian focus on first in terms of product development?

　　Xu Junquan: At present, the clinical diagnosis diseases that Bio-Jingdian focuses on include genetic diseases, infectious diseases, tumors and other chronic diseases. For these four types of diseases, Bio-Jingdian has a sequence in product development and a gradual approach in product promotion.

　　First, for genetic diseases, we positioned our products in the diagnosis of neonatal and gynecological diseases from the beginning of the project. For example, we have been promoting genetic testing products for hereditary deafness since 2009. At present, the "Newborn Deafness Gene Screening Project" has become the world's largest genetic testing project, with a total of more than 1.5 million people screened. In addition, we have begun to develop thalassemia gene testing and HPV testing products for gynecology around neonatal diseases. In short, we will continue to expand our product line in the direction of genetic disease testing, including genetic testing for various rare diseases.

　　In terms of infectious disease testing, we have developed a complete product line around tuberculosis from the initial product development to the present. Relatively speaking, we have made more in-depth progress in tuberculosis diagnostic products, and the testing platform has been increasingly recognized by the market.

　　In terms of tumor detection, we have already started to deploy, and products such as CTC are in the R&D stage. In addition, the scope of tumors is very large, and there are many types. We focus on screening those with higher incidence and greater market demand, such as lung cancer, breast cancer, liver cancer, etc.

　　Our testing products for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, thrombosis, and diabetes have entered the CFDA certification stage.

　　Editor: Could you please use examples to explain in detail how Bio-Bio’s products are used in clinical diagnosis?

　　Xu Junquan: Okay, let’s use tuberculosis diagnosis as an example.

　　For example, if a patient is suspected of having tuberculosis, we will first use conventional PCR to determine whether it is tuberculosis, and get the result after more than an hour. If it is determined to be tuberculosis, the chip will be used to check the drug resistance immediately, and the doctor will choose the right drug for the patient based on the drug resistance result. However, among the first-line drugs for treating tuberculosis, streptomycin belongs to the aminoglycoside antibiotics, which have certain ototoxicity. If the patient is a carrier of the drug-induced deafness gene, taking streptomycin will cause deafness. If the drug resistance results show that the patient needs to use streptomycin, the doctor will recommend that the patient check the drug-induced deafness gene.

　　For non-tuberculosis infections, we have also developed a chip to detect non-tuberculosis bacteria. This chip can detect 17 types of non-tuberculosis bacteria, so there is no need to use broad-spectrum antibiotics for trial treatment, thereby reducing the chance of pathogens developing drug resistance.

    Build a complete solution technology platform

　　Editor: Chips, sequencing, and PCR are the three major technology routes in the gene industry. Relatively speaking, which aspect does BioGene think needs more improvement?

　　Xu Junquan: I think whether it is chips, sequencing, or PCR technology, they all need to keep pace with the times, make further developments, and continuously improve. The needs raised by the clinic cannot be met by a single technology. In addition to the limitations of the technology itself, there are also factors such as cost-effectiveness to consider. For example, after the emergence of sequencing technology, PCR has not been replaced because it still has a certain application space and is still very convenient to use in some fields. We do not exclude any new technology, and at the same time we prefer to provide a complete set of solutions.

　　After years of development in the field of medical diagnosis, we have successively launched a number of innovative chips with independent intellectual property rights, such as the microfluidic disc chip for nucleic acid detection of respiratory pathogens, which can produce results in just two hours.

　　Editor: Finally, could you please introduce the future strategic development direction of Bio-Gene?

　　Xu Junquan: The development goal of Bio-Jingdian products is to create a new generation of molecular detection technology and platform. We will work closely with clinical diagnosis experts and establish a strategic cooperation mechanism. They will propose actual needs based on the problems or difficulties encountered in clinical practice, and we will solve these problems. We will judge which technology platform is the most economical and effective solution.

　　In the future, Bio-Jingdian will cooperate with hospitals to build precision medicine centers and explore the possibility of precision medicine. The ultimate goal is to provide precision medicine service solutions for various diseases. Of course, this requires the joint application of multiple innovative technologies. In recent years, we have signed strategic cooperation agreements with dozens of domestic hospitals, hoping that frontline doctors can give us more demands and feedback, which is more market-oriented.

　　The last point to be pointed out is that, at present, Bio-Gene's technology platform is not only attracting much attention and being widely used in the medical field, but we are also beginning to achieve rapid development in the areas of food safety, animal diseases and molecular breeding.

　　postscript:

　　It should be said that "precision medicine" is a very broad field, including precision prevention, precision diagnosis, precision management, precision treatment, etc. Bio-Jingdian first chose the "breakthrough" in the field of precision medicine in the field of precision disease diagnosis, and has achieved good scientific research and market results, promoting the development of diagnostic instruments and analytical technologies in my country.

　　It is understood that for a long time, the medical community has always been faced with such a difficult problem, that is, many clinical cases cannot be diagnosed by current technical means. Therefore, blind medication is inevitable during the treatment process, which not only wastes medical resources, but also may cause harm to patients. Therefore, the concept of "precision medicine" has very practical significance and very important social significance. If the word "precision" can be implemented, then the diagnosis and treatment technology research and diagnosis and treatment cost control under the guidance of the concept of precision medicine may greatly improve the current social medical security dilemma.