Interview With Scientific And Technological Innovation Enterprises

"Brain pacemakers will be a new opportunity for a lot of brain related diseases."

Twenty years ago, because of this kind of anticipation, he joined the foreign-funded equipment giant who had just entered China. Ten years ago, for the same faith, he searched all over the industry to find partners to establish Jingyu medical. Today, the medical device R & D enterprise, which was established and grew up in China, is looking to a broader global market.

Ning Yihua, chairman of Jingyu Medical Co., Ltd., graduated from Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University (formerly Shanghai Medical University), is the first generation of biomedical engineering graduates in China. He once worked in foreign enterprises such as GE Medical, Medtronic and Siemens.

In 2011, he founded Jingyu medical in Suzhou, an innovative high-tech medical device company integrating R & D, production and sales of deep brain electrical stimulation system.

Headquartered in BioBAY, Suzhou Industrial Park, Jingyu medical is one of the representative enterprises in the field of domestic brain pacemaker. At present, its products are mainly used in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, which once suffered American Boxer Ali, Spanish painter Dali and Chinese writer Bajin.

In the past few years, Jingyu medical has obtained the support of Yuanhe holding, Qiming venture capital, Softbank China, Shanlan capital and other investment institutions.

Enter the brain pacemaker Market

Today, Parkinson's disease is a common neurodegenerative disease in the elderly. There is one Parkinson's disease in every 100 people over the age of 55. One in 10 people over the age of 80 suffers from it.

In recent years, Parkinson's disease has become younger and younger. Some patients have symptoms of Parkinson's disease before the age of 40.

According to the Parkinson & apos; s foundation, there are more than 10 million patients with Parkinson's disease worldwide by 2020, and the number is expected to grow to 12 million by 2030.

China Center for Disease Control and prevention has also pointed out that with the aggravation of population aging, China may become the world's largest population of Parkinson's disease. According to the observation of many Chinese doctors, there are 100000 new patients with Parkinson's disease in China every year, and the number of patients will reach about 5 million by 2030.

Parkinson's disease was considered incurable when it was first discovered. For the past 200 years, scientists and doctors have been searching for effective treatments. Nowadays, although the cause of the disease is still unknown, drug therapy and deep brain stimulation (DBS) are widely used.

Deep brain electrical stimulation is commonly known as "brain pacemaker". The common brain pacemaker is an electronic device implanted into the brain. After recognizing the abnormal signal of disordered neurons released by the brain, it regulates the brain through the electrical signal released by microelectrode, so as to reduce the symptoms of Parkinson's patients.

Medtronic is the first medical device enterprise to carry out brain pacemaker research. In 1997, FDA approved Medtronic's application for the treatment of idiopathic tremor and Parkinson's disease. Today, Medtronic still occupies an important share of global brain pacemakers.

The huge market has attracted the pursuit of global medical device giants, and domestic medical device R & D enterprises have also entered. But in the past 20 years, China's brain pacemaker market has been monopolized by foreign giants for a long time.

In the first 10 years of brain pacemaker products entering China, hundreds of thousands of yuan are often used to block out civilian patients. Previous data showed that from 1998 to 2003, only 312 patients in China were equipped with imported pacemakers; from 2003 to 2009, the number increased significantly, but only 1700.

In 2014, Jingyu medical was included in the special approval channel of innovative medical devices by the national drug regulatory authorities, and its deep brain electrical stimulation products were approved for the market in 2016.

"If this product can only treat Parkinson's disease, then I won't come out and start a business. There are many diseases related to human brain. Dyskinesia is one of them, and Parkinson's disease is only one of them Ning Yihua added that, for example, brain pacemakers also have broad application space in the field of mental diseases, including drug addiction, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, schizophrenia and so on.

After many years of technical breakthrough, Jingyu medical has not only developed an implantable brain pacemaker with independent intellectual property rights, but also expanded the treatment field from motor disorders represented by Parkinson's disease to mental disorders such as drug addiction.

Help the new ecology of medical devices

Jingyu medical's first clinical trial of brain pacemaker was conducted in 2012. The patient, who was only 40 years old, finally opened his clenched fist smoothly after the pacemaker was turned on. He was smiling at the moment he put on his coat.

Ning Yihua looked at the playback video and explained, "he has been unable to dress himself for a long time after his serious illness, let alone go to work."

Jingyu medical aims to become a medical device company with international high-end technology and competitiveness, so that more patients can enjoy the treatment effect of high-tech medical technology.

In 2020, its independently developed, produced and sold brain pacemaker system passed the EU CE certification. For companies, this is their "ticket" to the European market.

Talking about the future development of the company, Ning Yihua revealed that brain pacemaker is a platform technology, and the team hopes to solve the problem of addiction treatment through new technology and mode. He told reporters that the company's third-generation products have been used in clinical trials of drug addiction, reducing the relapse rate by reducing the psychological craving of addicts.

Not only is it a brain pacemaker product, Jingyu medical also independently developed a neural control chip. This chip enables Jingyu medical's brain pacemaker to achieve smaller size, more functions, lower power consumption and richer treatment scenarios.

In addition, based on the Parkinson's chip, the team has developed a new generation of chips mainly used in addiction treatment. The second-generation chip uses the team's global patent for electrodes to stimulate specific brain nuclei in accordance with the new treatment.

"We don't find idea difficult, and we don't find it hard to make things. It's hard to get recognition. " More than 10 years after starting his business, Ning Yihua also had his helplessness. "When a Chinese company makes this (withdrawal plan), people are very polite to meet, but we need more opportunities to prove the effectiveness of our products and techniques to the world."

Due to more than 20 years of medical device industry experience and more than 10 years of entrepreneurial experience, Ning Yihua began to invest some time in the operation of Suzhou Industrial Park independent innovation medical device Alliance Association (hereinafter referred to as "Dushu alliance").

Dushu alliance is an industry organization initiated by independent innovation medical device enterprises, aiming to build a "medical device ecosystem". At present, nearly 60 member enterprises have joined.

"Everyone in the alliance is a start-up. We get together to build platforms, find resources, do training, and form an ecosystem in a more innovative way. " Ning Yihua said that Dushu alliance also gathered enterprises from various industries such as medical imaging, intelligent medical treatment and IVD diagnosis, which may provide complete solutions for medical institutions in the future.

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