Seize The Blue Ocean Of Cancer Early Screening: Head Enterprises Accelerate Product Commercialization

"Tumor early screening is a very serious matter with strict standards. In the past, there were more than 300 (early screening enterprises) in full bloom, but now some companies are gradually unable to hear the voice, and some gradually become channel companies. In the future, 5-10 enterprises may become the leading enterprises in the field of tumor early screening." Recently, at the 2020 Sipu meeting, Zhou Jun, CEO of Herui gene, said in an interview with the reporter of 21st century economic report.

Zhou Jun pointed out that for the early screening market, many people think that the whole market is at an early stage, but in fact, this field is developing rapidly. A new technology has developed rapidly from scratch to the acceptance of clinicians, which has achieved rapid development in the past decade. PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts that in the next five years, this field will enter an important period of rapid development and reshuffle, which will produce many star companies and business opportunities.

According to the reporter of 21st century economic report, at present, the products of several gene testing companies have been or are ready to go on the market. For example, on August 16, hori gene released its first liver cancer early screening product based on ngs technology; before that, nuohui health released the molecular diagnosis product for early colorectal cancer; in addition, the Pan Sheng Zi plan carried out cohort studies of 50000 people in lung cancer and digestive tract cancer respectively Research, verify the early screening model, accumulate data and finally apply for registration of IVD products of SFDA.

The implementation of cancer prevention and control action, promotion of prevention and screening, early diagnosis and treatment, tackling key scientific problems, and alleviating the pain points of people's livelihood have been included in the government work report in 2019. IC photo?

Tumor early screening Track Based on clinical diagnosis

Cancer prevention and control in China is facing severe challenges. Wang Hongyang, academician of the Chinese Academy of engineering and director of the national liver cancer science center, told reporters at a recent meeting that according to the report of China's cancer registration annual report in 2019, China's cancer prevention and control is now facing more severe challenges. In 2015, the number of new cancer cases was 3.929 million, accounting for 1 / 4 of the world's new cases, and 8 cases died of cancer 338000. According to the data of the last ten years, the incidence of malignant tumor is still increasing every year, with an increase of about 3.9%. The death rate due to cancer is also increasing every year.

Wang Hongyang pointed out that there are three major challenges and bottlenecks in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, namely, difficult to prevent, late detection and poor treatment. "The pathogenesis of cancer is relatively complex, and we have not invested enough in epidemiology and cohort studies in the past, so the prevention and control of many risk factors and high-risk groups are not tight enough; in the past, there were few effective screening technologies for cancer, the cost of screening was high, and the technical level of early diagnosis was low; at present, many malignant tumors in China were found late, mainly in patients of middle and late stage Therefore, the effect of cancer treatment is poor, the recurrence and metastasis rate is high, and can not achieve accurate personalized treatment for every patient. In addition, some drugs have many problems of drug resistance and side effects

By studying the causes of the decline in cancer mortality in some European and American countries, especially the United States, Wang Hongyang found that by popularizing cancer screening, promoting new drug research and development, and strict smoking cessation measures, the total cancer mortality rate in the United States decreased from 215.1/100000 to 158.7/100000 from 1991 to 2015, a decrease of 26%.

These situations have attracted the attention of experts, scientific and technological workers, and also the attention of the national government. Therefore, it is necessary to implement cancer prevention and control action, promote early diagnosis and treatment of prevention and screening, tackle key problems in scientific research, and alleviate the pain points of people's livelihood, which are written into the government work report in 2019.

In recent years, with the development of technology, some gene detection companies have begun to enter the field of early screening of cancer, but there are also many mixed projects.

Zhou Jun told the 21st century economic news reporter that early tumor screening is suitable for high-risk groups, including those with high incidence of family tumors. The onset time and age of different cancers vary greatly. Early detection of cancer can help cancer treatment and improve survival rate.

"We always hope to realize early diagnosis and treatment of cancer based on clinical value, and patients can get accurate treatment, and we hope to screen out cancer patients 6-12 months in advance through gene detection technology." Zhou Jun pointed out that clinical gene testing is often highly professional and targeted, but the more valuable it is.

"Early screening of liver cancer with clinical value can help clinicians solve problems, and clinicians can provide corresponding intervention measures according to the test results. Therefore, we think that according to the regular follow-up plan of high-risk groups, 6-12 months may be a very good time point, and the normal high-risk groups will go back half a year or once a year During the follow-up, he found some features to help with the diagnosis. " Zhou Jun pointed out.

Guangzheng Hengsheng also pointed out that the current operation mode of tumor early screening market is to provide third-party detection services. There are three main business modes of enterprises: providing third-party testing services or corresponding detection kits to medical institutions; directly serving high-risk groups of cancer patients; providing convenient and fast POCT tumor detection products to ordinary consumers. At present, the first business model is the main business model, while the second and third business models are still in the exploratory stage. With the continuous enhancement of the awareness of ordinary consumers for tumor early screening and the improvement of relevant early screening operation mode, the second and third modes are expected to get rapid development.

Zhou Jun believes that the current early screening of cancer based on clinical services has great development significance. However, there are also several problems to be solved. First, there should be sufficient product power to bring significant changes and improvement to the clinical results; second, there should be a consensus in clinical practice, with the participation of doctors, so as to make clinical acceptance; in addition, in terms of supervision, there should be innovative evaluation methods for technical approval.

Commercialization of products promotes early screening of cancer

Cancer screening market is recognized as the future blue ocean market in the industry. Taking liver cancer as an example, according to the Southwest Securities Research Report, without considering the market penetration, the market space of early screening and early diagnosis of liver cancer in China is as high as 200 billion yuan.

As a blue ocean, cancer screening has attracted many players. Due to the "low threshold and high barrier" characteristics of the biotechnology industry, the competition in this track is very fierce. For example, taking the liver cancer early screening as an example, in addition to the above and Rui gene, panshengzi is also making relevant layout.

Zhou Jun pointed out to the reporter of 21st century economic report that the clinical transformation of gene sequencing technology needs to go through four stages: the first stage is to build the underlying technology platform, which is the most basic but core requirement for gene sequencing enterprises; the second stage is to establish models and carry out retrospective experiments, that is, to test the algorithm of the model with known data, which is to lay a preliminary foundation for clinical application In the third stage, prospective clinical trials will be conducted, that is, the model of the previous stage will be tested in the real world. In this stage, the more patients are enrolled, the more real the clinical effect will be; in the fourth stage, the industrialization of products will be implemented.

Secondly, the reporter pointed out that in order to win the large-scale economic report, the reporter should have the ability to deal with large-scale clinical data, especially the ability to deal with large-scale clinical data At the same time, the standardization and commercialization of service process and the corresponding market education ability are also very important.

Zhou Jun pointed out that at present, the industry is busy, but in fact, the concentration ratio is gradually increasing, and the capital is gradually concentrated to the leading enterprises. In the future, 5-10 enterprises may become the leading enterprises in the industry. At the same time, with the commercialization of more and more products, the development of tumor early screening will be better promoted.

However, it is worth noting that compared with the mature foreign markets, the number of domestic gene testing products is not large, and the development of clinical services is still in the early stage, and there is no unified management system and pricing logic. At the SIPP round table forum, Zhou Jun also said frankly that in terms of payment, there is a big difference compared with developed countries such as the United States. For example, the communication between hospitals in the United States is promoted by commercial insurance, but domestic public hospitals are isolated from each other.

At the same time, expanding the number of detection genes will inevitably increase the cost of testing. The cost of testing items and the affordability of patients will affect the development of the industry to a certain extent, especially in the field of tumor early screening. As the patients are not affected, the willingness to pay is relatively limited. Therefore, the balance between technical performance and cost should be fully considered in the product development process.

In this regard, Zhou Jun believes that enterprises should control costs within a reasonable range by truly innovating technologies and products. At the same time, with the progress of technology, market and population expansion, the scale effect is further revealed, and in the long run, the cost of gene testing will be further reduced. It is also understood that Herui gene has also begun to explore the docking of commercial insurance, and even tried to cooperate with diagnostic enterprises, pharmaceutical enterprises and commercial insurance companies.

Taking the brand-new large panel products of Herui gene as an example, "for example, patients use more than 20 targeted drugs covering 5 major tumor types according to the test results of Herui gene. In the future, if the drugs are ineffective and the disease progresses, the patients can get the compensation from the insurance company."

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