Pharmaceutical Business Advisor AstraZeneca Chloe Wang： Writing the Next Growth Decade with Ecosphere and Digitalization

    The column "Insight into New Trends and New Possibilities of Pharmacy" is a special program "Pharmacy Consultation" for the seventh anniversary of Ali Health Pharmacy jointly produced by Ali Health and Cyberblue. The purpose of this paper is to explore the new trend of medical and health industry in the new era from the perspective of pharmaceutical companies’ first site, and to discuss how pharmaceutical companies and Internet medical platforms can jointly build an ecology to provide users with more comprehensive, professional and convenient new ways of health services under the changing industry and around the changing needs of users.

    Today, we will review AstraZeneca’s innovative practice of deepening the China market for 30 years, and discuss the "entrepreneurial history" of this multinational pharmaceutical company in China from two dimensions of "digitalization" and "ecological circle".

    "Taking patients as the center and technology as the driving force, we will jointly explore the construction of a healthy and innovative ecology. While realizing digital medical care, we will help improve the integrated diagnosis and treatment and the whole course management plan, bringing new ideas for chronic disease management, primary care and multi-scene medical services. This is the fifth year of AstraZeneca’s health cooperation with Ali. In the year, AstraZeneca’s global executive vice president, international business and China President Chloe Wang sent a message to Ali Health.

    Behind this message, on the one hand, AstraZeneca’s positive layout in the digital field, and on the other hand, its interpretation in innovative ecological cooperation. These are the two main ideas that AstraZeneca cultivated in the China market for a long time.

    When talking about AstraZeneca, apart from its important role in tumor, cardiovascular and respiratory treatment, we will also mention AstraZeneca’s attitude of embracing the China market and focusing on the China market: in the past 30 years, AstraZeneca has embarked on its own path from product introduction to overweight manufacturing to the construction of innovative ecology.

    AstraZeneca embraced the China market vigorously, and the China market also gave AstraZeneca a good feedback-for a long time, AstraZeneca’s sales in China were among the best among multinational pharmaceutical companies.

    On the 30th birthday just past, AstraZeneca said that it would continue to "bring in" and "go out" simultaneously, push China’s innovation to the world and continue to embrace the China market.

    "Embrace the China market" is not just a slogan. How did AstraZeneca land? We try to deconstruct from two aspects: "digitalization" and "ecological circle".

    AstraZeneca’s Innovation Ecosphere

    As a leading pharmaceutical company in the world, AstraZeneca’s product innovation has always been at the forefront of the world. Although there are not a few multinational pharmaceutical companies with strong products entering the China market, AstraZeneca is the most outstanding in terms of volume and growth rate.

    Behind this is that AstraZeneca, on the basis of its rich treatment methods, has long been committed to promoting the mutually beneficial integration of global and local innovations in China: identifying the connection points between enterprises and policies and market trends, and the advantages of China’s supply chain, and constantly innovating the upstream and downstream cooperation models.

    In diagnosis, the industry trend of accurate detection should be followed. AstraZeneca and its partners announced the establishment of the MET HER2 Accurate Diagnosis Alliance to jointly build the capabilities in disease prevention and early screening, personalized treatment plan and so on.

    In terms of treatment, with the rise of local innovation in China, AstraZeneca actively explores ways to cooperate with local pharmaceutical companies with an open mind on its own product pipeline array. Last year, AstraZeneca and Unacon started cooperation on oxitinib. As a part of the long-term project of "lung cancer targeted joint scientific research cooperation", AstraZeneca is trying to link the clinical strength of local pharmaceutical companies to better improve the survival and benefit of lung cancer patients in China.

    In disease management, AstraZeneca starts from the scene of field diagnosis and treatment, helps medical institutions to build a bridge between doctors and patients, and provides solutions such as full course management and integrated diagnosis and treatment. AstraZeneca has signed strategic cooperation agreements with a number of medical groups to jointly integrate high-quality resources and strengthen the role of non-public medical care in China’s current medical system.

    From diagnosis to treatment to management, AstraZeneca’s strategic layout and cooperative ecology cover the complete treatment journey of patients.

    In addition to the traditional health industry chain, AstraZeneca is also actively embracing the new format of the health industry.

    In May this year, AstraZeneca and Ali Health jointly built a cardiovascular disease education and rehabilitation platform to provide customized and innovative digital health management services for patients with chronic diseases. Some consumption scenes of chronic diseases have been moved online, and through digital means, patients’ disease cognition and course management efficiency have been improved.

    "By building the" Troika "of innovative ecosystems such as China Smart Health Innovation Center (CCiC), International Life Science Innovation Park (iCampus) and AstraZeneca Zhongjin Medical Industry Fund (AZ-CICC Fund), AstraZeneca has joined hands with local pharmaceutical innovation forces in China to continuously and deeply build an international healthy innovation ecosystem." Zhu Lixuan, vice president of AstraZeneca China, head of the Digitalization and Business Innovation Department and the Business Strategy and Operational Excellence Department, explained the concept of the ecosphere.

    She said that AstraZeneca very much hopes to find an ecosystem partner who is also patient-centered and can complement each other’s business. The advantages of AstraZeneca in the field of medicine will be combined with excellent enterprises in the fields of equipment, special medical food, mental health and sports to achieve cooperation covering many aspects of the whole course management.

    Previously, foreign pharmaceutical companies relied on advanced products to meet the health needs of their stocks in the China market. Nowadays, the growth of the pharmaceutical industry needs everyone to make the cake in the market bigger together. The creation of AstraZeneca innovation ecosystem is the process of making the cake bigger with partners.

    Digitally open up the whole course management

    If the "ecological circle" is to improve the service experience of patients in the whole diagnosis and treatment process, then "digitalization" is a powerful tool to improve the medical and health service experience.

    The combination of "smart medical care" and "patient-centered" requires all parties in the medical system to cooperate through digital tools, provide continuous, convenient and high-quality services for patients, and track, record and guide each stage of the course.

    In this regard, AstraZeneca’s strategy is to focus on subdividing the treatment field, explore a set of landing models, and copy them to other fields.

    In terms of business, AstraZeneca supports associations, hospitals and experts to launch an innovative diagnosis and treatment system integrating screening, diagnosis, treatment and management; A digital management platform has been established in many fields, such as tumor, cardiovascular disease and chronic disease, so that every link of standardized treatment can be standardized, and standardized diagnosis and treatment data can be accumulated through standardized electronic medical records and quality control management in diagnosis and treatment.

    Faced with a series of problems such as uneven supply of medical resources in the low-end market and complicated process of patient diagnosis and treatment, AstraZeneca has applied for digital solutions such as remote consultation, multidisciplinary diagnosis and treatment (MDT) and distance academic training and education, and is committed to improving the quality of diagnosis and treatment in various places.

    In terms of channels, AstraZeneca also spared no effort to give full play to the advantages of digitalization.

    Grass-roots business has been difficult for many pharmaceutical companies to cover because of its wide distribution and low service efficiency. This is what AstraZeneca has been trying to overcome since it entered the China market. AstraZeneca has cooperated with many local e-commerce companies and Internet medical platforms, such as Ali Health, to create an online and offline integrated health service scene, which improves the accessibility of medical care and patient medication. In addition, AstraZeneca has specially built a grassroots business team to actively improve the medical service experience of patients in third-and fourth-tier cities.

    The innovation of digital diagnosis and treatment (service) and the improvement of infrastructure in distribution channels (tools) make AstraZeneca closer and closer to its goal in the grassroots market.

    In addition, based on the established standardized treatment database, AstraZeneca is also exploring the empowerment of product research and conducting comprehensive digital medical exploration and research.

    At the same time, AstraZeneca is also using some cutting-edge digital tools to empower the whole process.

    Shenrui Medical, a participating enterprise of AstraZeneca Zhongjin Medical Industry Fund, is one of the pioneers in the field of AI medical care in China. Its Dr.Wise AI medical auxiliary diagnosis system uses international cutting-edge technology to make artificial intelligence medical image diagnosis reach the advanced level, and it is in the forefront of the industry in the accurate diagnosis of diseases in various systems, which can provide clinical suggestions for doctors to make further diagnosis and treatment decisions. At present, the system is widely used in decision-making and follow-up of early screening of lung cancer, early screening of breast cancer and auxiliary assessment of stroke, which effectively helps to improve the efficiency of doctors’ diagnosis and treatment and reduce the rate of misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis.

    Digitalization is not a concept, but for "usefulness".

    "Realizing data insight and closed loop at each key node is the key to the success of digital transformation of pharmaceutical companies. But we can’t digitize for the sake of digitization. All digital transformations must be patient-centered, empower doctors and patients through digital innovation, improve the efficiency of disease management, and ultimately benefit patients. " Zhu Lixuan said this.

    Multinational pharmaceutical companies start businesses in China.

    Health is an eternal demand. No matter how the external environment changes, consumers are willing to invest in high-quality health needs.

    In the field of health consumption, there are both commodity consumption and service consumption, such as online consultation and telemedicine; It not only integrates cutting-edge scientific and technological innovations, but also integrates fine and intimate health guidance. Consumer demand is diversified, personalized and multi-level, and the update and upgrade speed is faster.

    Under the diversified consumer demand, AstraZeneca is exploring how to match the needs of China patients with more drugs and solutions.

    At first, AstraZeneca introduced abundant therapeutic tools to China. Since then, AstraZeneca has continued to expand the localization process in the supply chain to improve the accessibility of drugs at lower production costs.

    Nowadays, when the demand for health consumption is more and more diversified, from treatment to service, from effectiveness to accessibility, from the north to the low-end market, from simply eliminating illness to improving the whole process experience … AstraZeneca meets these diversified needs one by one. The process of finding the demand and satisfying it is a process of starting a business.

    Talking about AstraZeneca’s future layout of China market, Zhu Lizuan shared: "On the basis of the continuous improvement of agglomeration effect and mode maturity, the’ Troika’ of innovation centers, innovation parks and funds is expected to further strengthen their mutual coupling and driving operation modes and help more local innovation achievements to land. In the future, AstraZeneca will also promote more innovative models, innovative enterprises and innovative achievements in China to the world stage by building bridges to the sea, and vigorously promote the global layout and development of China enterprises. " Zhu Lixuan mentioned.