For the doctor's image, most people will automatically have a white coat and a stethoscope in their minds. The stethoscope extends the doctor's hearing, and various medical devices are also extending the doctor's eyes, but no medical device can be as close to the doctor as a stethoscope, and handheld ultrasound may be the next stethoscope-like device. That is to say, Pocket Ultrasound has a huge imagination in the future medical development, and it can sink the structural problems of primary medical care.
The arterial network has taken over the overview of the handheld ultrasound track. It is concluded that the entire handheld ultrasound track is dominated by the AI ​​handheld ultrasound developed by the Butterfly Network, which has just raised $250 million, while the domestic patented 128-bit physical channel. Stoco is a potential stock in domestic companies.
In the handheld ultrasound market, startups are not behind the giants. On the contrary, compared to the products of Philips and GE giants, Stoco is more able to play in terms of functions and costs. In June of this year, Stoco also announced the completion. Tens of millions of RMB angel round financing, exclusive investment by Fu Sheng and Zhang Quanling's Zi Niu Fund.
What does Stoco gain from its technology leadership? What kind of commercialization approach has been chosen in the market strategy? To this end, the arterial network interviewed Siduo's CEO Zhang Zhuo and sales director Liu Yu.
Pocket ultrasound needs to have multi-scenario application strength to do incremental market
Ultrasound imaging diagnosis is based on the excellent properties of ultrasound itself in the body, such as reflection, scattering, refraction, etc., to visualize muscles and internal organs, including their size, structure and pathological lesions, while handheld ultrasound can achieve compression of large ultrasound equipment. Ultrasound device for mobile phone size.
Although the sparrow is small, it must be well-organized, which is also a high technical requirement for handheld ultrasound. The main factors that determine the competitiveness of handheld ultrasound are two aspects, one is the probe hardware; the other is the signal processing algorithm. The number of elements of the ultrasound probe on the hardware determines the sharpness and resolution of the ultrasound image.
Looking at the products on the entire handheld ultrasound track, the giants are basically in sync with the startups, but the product features have begun to open the gap.
On the probe that collects the signal, Stoco has three probes that can detect the whole body to collect signals, rather than being limited to a certain physical status. The number of physical channels of the probes of Stoco products is also high. The number of channels that are commonly used by large-scale ultrasound equipment is higher. The higher the number of array elements, the more clear the ultrasound image and the higher the resolution.
It is worth mentioning that the breakthrough of Stoco's ultrasound products is to open up the last mile of diagnosis. Stoco's specialist software package can automatically measure diseases. For example, the vascular professional testing kit, using patented blood vessel detection technology, can accurately measure the intravascular medial membrane, obtain the mean and maximum thickness of the medial membrane thickness in the common carotid artery, and a series of hemodynamic parameters. After comparing with the general population database, the patient's vascular health status is finally assessed.
With the support of the exclusive core underlying technology, Stoco products can also achieve multi-scene applications. Including emergency, obstetrics, orthopedics, neonatology and other special clinical, primary care, field surgery.
Stand out in the handheld ultrasound queue does not mean that the next step is to challenge large ultrasound equipment. For large-scale ultrasound equipment, the important difference between handheld ultrasound and large-scale ultrasound equipment is not the difference, but the complementary relationship. The handheld ultrasound equipment can mainly improve the accessibility of medical services. It is worthy of the hospital imaging department and falls to the clinical diagnosis. In the primary medical institutions.
“In the entire market scale, there are still differences in the number of desktop ultrasound and portable ultrasound applications. Desktop ultrasound is mainly used in the Department of Ultrasound or Obstetrics and Gynecology, and there are few clinical departments. The primary medical institutions cannot afford the expensive desktop. Equipment." Liu Yu, who worked for a large-scale ultrasound manufacturer in Europe and America for many years, told the arterial network reporter, "This also determines that handheld ultrasound can be promoted in both the clinical department and the primary care. This is an incremental market, pioneering. It's a new market cake. If you go to challenge a stock market, the difficulty is bigger."
Stoco's product technology advantages can be applied to multiple scenarios, with greater incremental market space and external technology platform output. Not long ago, domestic large-scale medical equipment suppliers and Stoco added an order of 9 million per year on the basis of 50 million orders per year. On the one hand, this order shows the recognition of Sidko's core technology, and on the other hand, it is the prelude to Sidko's sinking grassroots market.
The field of ultrasound has redefined the market
Achieving breakthroughs and breakthroughs in key technologies, the core support lies in Sidko's experienced R&D team. Dr. Liu Xiyao, founder and chairman of the company, has more than 10 years of experience in ultrasound research and industry, including medical ultrasound system design, medical signals and image processing.
Dr. Liu Xiyao has 6 Chinese invention patents, and 5 are in the process of applying for more than 20 academic papers. As early as 2008, Liu Xiyao was engaged in ultrasonic research and development, led the research and development team to develop high-end medical color ultrasound systems, and proposed new algorithms such as three-dimensional spectrum imaging, high-resolution color blood flow, composite elastography and software beam focusing.
The team's technical consultant, Professor Liu Dongquan was the chief scientist of Siemens Ultrasound. Professor Liu Dongquan worked in the ultrasound industry for 28 years. During this period, he obtained 18 US invention patents and 16 Chinese invention patents. In 2004, he was a special professor at Sichuan University.
Professor Liu Dongquan and Dr. Liu Xiyao, two generations of father and son, can be said to have more than 30 years of history in the field of ultrasound. In addition to the technical team, Sidko's marketing team is equally outstanding. The company's co-founder and CEO Zhang Zhuo has 11 years of experience in the ultrasound industry market and sales. Marketing Director Liu Yu also worked for European and American multinational ultrasound manufacturers for many years.
How does Stoco form a team that has both the development and commercialization of the underlying technology platform. Zhang Zhuo told the arterial network: "Everyone will get sick, we hope that more people can get high-quality diagnostic imaging services. In addition, we all have a small desire, when we are sick when we are old, When we need to go to the doctor, the ultrasound machine used by the doctor is made by us. It has our blood in it."
Solve medical structural contradictions, handheld ultrasound can make hematopoietic primary care
In the two markets of clinical departments and primary care, the grassroots are still in the blank, and the demand for diagnostic equipment is even stronger. The strong signal released by this round of medical reform is also a strong base. There are more than 933,000 primary health care institutions in China, including community health centers, township health centers, village clinics, and clinics; there are nearly 30,000 hospitals, and these 30,000 hospitals have undertaken 80% of outpatient visits. To solve this structural contradiction, we need to solve the problem of reversing the medical resources.
It is equally important to upgrade the basic equipment and upgrade the doctors at the grassroots level. However, existing diagnostic equipment is difficult to sink into the grassroots due to cost and operational problems.
Many large equipments are difficult to operate and costly. The vital signs, biochemical indicators, and medical shadows are just the need for diagnosis. Ultrasound is an important part of medical imaging. At present, it is still a major demand that has not been met at the grassroots level. Stoco's handheld ultrasound equipment has no ionizing radiation and is easy to operate, and medical personnel can use it multiple times.
Stoco also fully adapts 4G/WIFI/USB cable and other methods to transfer images, compatible with Android/Windows/IOS multi-platform. The most convenient and complete ultrasound solution for the primary care staff.
"The service level of primary health care personnel needs to be improved, and the number of primary health care workers is still decreasing. People's ability is the most difficult to improve. At the grassroots level, there are still problems that cannot be understood. The grassroots needs portable. Intelligent products. Stoco's exclusive patented technology transplants the core functions of large color ultrasound products to portable products, enabling doctors to see images in real time. In diagnosis, we are also using AI to enable direct diagnosis of lesions. "Stoco CEO Zhang Zhuo said to the arterial network.
That is to say, in the context of the medical reform policy leaning toward the grassroots level, it is necessary to transfuse blood for the grassroots, and it is necessary to make the grassroots have hematopoietic capacity. In the medical development process, ultrasound equipment is migratory, and human experience is the most difficult to replicate. How to make technology and products truly graft into human capabilities, rather than becoming a device that is not frequently used, is the difficulty of medical device innovation.
Solving the problem of primary medical staff is also the direction of foreign medical device innovation. At the beginning of this year, Butterfly Network launched an augmented reality tool on AI Pocket Ultrasound to support expert consultation and remote care in rural areas of developing countries. However, in the case of the overall saturation of the resources of medical personnel in China, it is difficult for telemedicine to be fully rolled out.
Next, Zhang Zhuo said: "We hope to use the handheld ultrasound equipment to spread the inspection at the grassroots level to achieve early screening of the disease. Stoco will continue to integrate the high-end application functions of the high-color ultra-large desktop color ultrasound, and their The functional modules are gradually ported to our handheld ultrasound to make it easy to operate and meet the needs of primary care staff. In addition, we will continue to develop automatic and semi-automatic measurements."
ZHANGJIAGANG DINSHENGLIN TRADING CO.,LTD , https://www.dslhouse.com