From November 23 to 27, the Global Digital Trade Expo was held in Hangzhou. During this trade fair, multinational pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca introduced its products, such as rosuvastatin calcium tablets, esomeprazole magnesium enteric coated tablets, and ticagrelor tablets, to AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals (Hangzhou) Co., Ltd., which is responsible for the sales of these products in China.
In 2021, AstraZeneca's headquarters in the eastern region of China settled in Gongshu District, Hangzhou. AstraZeneca's General Manager in China, Lai Minglong, stated during this year's data trade fair, "Zhejiang has a leading advantage in the digital economy, and Hangzhou has formed significant industrial characteristics in the biopharmaceutical field, providing strong support for us to build a 'patient-centered' digital medical innovation ecosystem."
In recent years, digital healthcare has become a hot track in China, and the innovation of new technologies such as 5G and AI has brought more possibilities. AstraZeneca is also one of the earliest multinational pharmaceutical companies in the healthcare industry to explore digital transformation. On November 24th, Zhu Lili, Vice President of AstraZeneca China and Head of Digital and Business Innovation, Business Strategy and Excellence Operations, discussed her views on the efficiency and security, opportunities and challenges brought by digital healthcare and technology in China during an interview with media reporters including the Daily Business News (NBD).
Digital healthcare is still in its early stages
NBD: AstraZeneca has already conducted many explorations in the field of digital healthcare. What stage do you think the integration of digitalization and healthcare is currently at?
Zhu Lili: I believe that the combination of digitalization and healthcare is different from the digitalization of consumer goods. Digital healthcare still needs to be closely integrated with offline diagnosis and treatment scenarios.
The second is the need for government policy support, such as many projects not covered by medical insurance, so some digital methods cannot be truly widely applied.
The third is the integration of digitalization and healthcare, especially in terms of medical capabilities. In fact, it is still in its early stages and there is a long way to go, including the need for talent and organizational development space. I think the integration of digitalization and healthcare requires the collective efforts of the whole society, and cannot be achieved by a single enterprise. So AstraZeneca will collaborate with the government and so many upstream and downstream partners in the ecosystem, because it cannot be achieved by a single enterprise.
AstraZeneca currently focuses on four sub areas in digital healthcare, one of which is the empowerment of artificial intelligence and AI technology for new drug research and development. At the same time, it also includes establishing a new patient-centered integrated model of "screening, diagnosis, treatment, and management" for diagnosis and treatment. In addition, digital healthcare also includes the integration and empowerment of medical big data.
The second aspect is the homogenization of diagnosis and treatment. We hope to use digital education to help achieve a relatively homogeneous level of diagnosis and treatment among doctors, so that patients can receive the same quality of treatment.
The third is the layout of digital channels, which enables patients to obtain medical services online more effectively and conveniently through e-commerce and other channels.
The fourth aspect is the layout of digital operations, which improves the quality of enterprise business insights and decision-making efficiency through cooperation with multiple leading local technology companies and digital solution providers, and actively promotes digital transformation and development at the operational level.
NBD: Currently, AstraZeneca is also applying big model technology to digital healthcare, but recently we have seen the news of Open AI's "palace battle" constantly reversing. The innovation and security issues of AI technology behind this event have attracted widespread attention, as they are one and two sides of technology. So, when it comes to digitalization of healthcare, how can we balance AI technology and contradictions?
Zhu Lili: In the development process of any new technology, there must be a circuitous process, so I think the change of AI is also a normal process. It is precisely because of this process of change that many things can be sorted out. Throughout the process of applying artificial intelligence and medical big data, I have seen several directions developing in a positive direction.
The first is that the country has officially established relevant departments to standardize the application of medical big data. I have also seen the release of many application rules and guidelines, allowing everyone to move forward in an orderly manner.
Secondly, in this process, like AstraZeneca and many innovative enterprises, we will also discover new needs in the development process and continuously feedback them to relevant government departments, hoping to empower and improve each other, and then move forward together.
Medical data governance still has a long way to go
NBD: The data of medical and patient users is often sensitive and involves the privacy of both users and patients. Will there be significant pain points in the flow of these data elements?
Zhu Lili: Overall, China or the world may be similar. The quality of medical data and governance, which are the most basic tasks, actually have a long way to go. This involves new technologies and requires the participation of corresponding enterprises.
The second issue is that medical big data itself involves ethics and privacy, which requires support from national policies. Based on national laws and regulations, we must develop and apply medical big data in a legal, compliant, and reasonable manner. We are also actively promoting cooperation with the government in this field.
Now you can see that the National Data Bureau has been established this year, and many cities also have big data management institutions, which has paved a good way for us to cooperate with the government and play the role of medical big data. The Chinese government has done a very good job in this regard.
For example, some city governments have organized city level medical big data groups that collaborate with the National Health Commission. Commercial companies have already applied data privacy and security management methods, such as data desensitization, when applying them. It is equivalent to adding a firewall in the middle to ensure the security and privacy of user data.
NBD: AstraZeneca has placed its headquarters in the eastern region of China in Hangzhou, and the digital economy is also the "number one project" of the Hangzhou Municipal Government. I would like to know what AstraZeneca's future layout will be in digitalization and business innovation?
Zhu Lili: Firstly, we have established a regional headquarters in Hangzhou, as well as our international life science innovation park and innovation center, as well as supporting industry funds. Our positioning is to cooperate with the government to promote innovative development related to digital healthcare.
Secondly, we will continue to promote the layout of digital healthcare (including digital empowerment research and development, integrated digital diagnosis and treatment models, and exploration of medical big data), digital education, digital operations, and digital channels. These aspects will go hand in hand and continue to increase. On this basis, we will increase cooperation with new technology companies such as AI and big models, deeply explore the development and application of medical big data, and further improve efficiency by utilizing AI.
Thirdly, we hope to cooperate with the government to promote digital empowerment of medical application scenarios, so that patients can benefit.
Finally, we are also laying out the outdoor scene after diagnosis and treatment. For example, patients in pharmacies and e-commerce channels, we hope to benefit them through new technological means and provide them with good treatment. So our future layout is, on the one hand, to move the disease management checkpoint forward, and on the other hand, to connect the disease management scenarios inside and outside the hospital.