In the scientific research community, a large number of studies centered on “brain” have sprung up. Academician Pope Mouming once said publicly: “Brain science is a frontier science, not only in this century, even in the next century is still a frontier science.” And the investment community is ready for the deer in the Central Plains. As early as ten years ago, IDG Capital donated the establishment of Tsinghua Brain Science Institute, and in recent years, it has been frequently funded. Sequoia China, Daotong Capital, Haier Capital and a host of other well-known VC organizations have entered the brain science. Under the craze of brain science, entrepreneurs also realize that the waiting wind has come. Dr. Silen Wang from the Department of Radiology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine is one of them.
Dr. Wang worked as a clinician in the Department of Radiology at the People’s Hospital of Peking University, and after completing his master’s and doctoral studies at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Hong Kong, he went to the Department of Radiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine to further his studies. With more than 10 years of research and clinical experience in the field of brain disease diagnosis, Dr. Wang decided to quit his job and return to China in 2017, when he was a senior scientist at Emory University in the U.S., and founded Dr. Brain in Shenzhen.
The large number of patients with brain diseases predetermines that the diagnosis of brain diseases has a broad market prospect. Taking the most common Alzheimer’s disease as an example, in 2020, the international medical journal The Lancet Public Health published an online study on dementia among people over 60 years old in China, which showed that there are already as many as 9.83 million Alzheimer’s disease patients in China. This number continues to grow as aging increases. However, this degenerative brain disease steals more than just the patient’s memory, it also reduces the patient’s ability to take care of themselves. Behind the huge number of patients lies both the plight of individual families and the huge cost of care to society. If the disease is diagnosed through early diagnosis, there is a chance to control the disease at an early stage and slow down its progression. In addition, acute cerebrovascular diseases such as stroke, cerebral arteritis, and cerebral thrombosis can also be prevented in advance through neuroimaging diagnosis of the brain to avoid tragedies.
When Dr. Wang worked in the imaging department of Peking University People’s Hospital, he found that existing imaging equipment still had problems such as incomplete imaging and inaccurate reports. In addition, diagnosing a disease requires a comprehensive analysis of multiple parameters, requiring the imaging doctor to combine many diagnostic-related medical knowledge to form a final diagnostic imaging report. Therefore, the accuracy of the report is also related to the doctor’s personal experience. All the pain points in the equipment affect the accuracy and popularity of brain disease imaging screening.
While studying in an overseas laboratory, Dr. Wang felt the charm of combining AI and imaging. Through a huge database and advanced AI algorithms to form a diagnostic report, it is possible to correct human differences caused by the clinical experience or personal habits of imaging doctors, and form more objective structured data – this can be a good solution to the problem of uneven diagnostic level of imaging in China. After accumulating a lot of scientific research experience in AI brain disease screening overseas, Dr. Wang decided to go back to China to start his own business, and in 2017, when China’s AI brain disease diagnosis field was still in a blank space, Dr. Wang set up his own team and began commercialization attempts.
Looking back, Dr. Wang is a bit emotional: “Dr. Brain is the earliest commercialization team in China to start brain science digital healthcare. With the feedback from the market, our products and business models have been constantly innovated to meet the needs of the domestic medical and healthcare market.” When Dr. Wang first returned to China, his main idea was to fill the domestic market gap. Therefore, at that time, Dr. Brain’s product development was carried out with the goal of realizing domestic substitution. By 2020, with the “AI fever” sweeping through China and the emergence of a large number of AI imaging devices, Dr. Wang believes that Dr. Brain has also reached a turning point from technology-oriented to market-oriented.
AI diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is Dr. Brain’s longest-running and most mature pipeline, and its products are easy to popularize and highly accurate, all of which directly hit the market demand. Since 2019, the National Health Commission has been focusing on Alzheimer’s disease prevention and intervention. By 2022, increasing the rate of primary screening of cognitive function in the elderly has become a mandatory task for healthcare systems everywhere. Screening for Alzheimer’s disease is divided into two main categories: invasive and non-invasive. invasive screening methods such as β-amyloid (Aβ) positron emission tomography (PET) imaging (Aβ-PET), tau-PET imaging, and cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) Aβ and tau tests, although the results of the invasive screening methods are highly accurate and fast, are difficult to popularize because of the scarcity of equipment, inconvenience of mobility, and high price. In addition, invasive methods can be resistant to some patients and are accompanied by the risk of complications.
Non-invasive screening methods, on the other hand, are mainly performed through scale assessments. It usually takes 30-40 minutes to complete a scale, and due to the varying comprehension and literacy levels of the elderly, professional medical assistance is often required when completing the scale. In the context of China’s healthcare resource constraints, such a screening method is not highly feasible. In addition, scale screening is easily influenced by subjective will, and the accuracy of the results is very limited after spending a lot of manpower and resources. Dr. Brain is the only company in China that can cover the entire process of population screening, accurate diagnosis and digital rehabilitation.
On the hospital side, Dr. Brain’s intelligent image diagnostic platform, developed by Dr. Brain, is able to analyze hundreds of millions of brain images with the help of the population image database, high-definition MRI and artificial intelligence technology, and accurately complete the screening and diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Currently, this technology has completed the first clinical trial of Alzheimer’s disease led by Xuanwu Hospital. Dr. Wang introduced, “The clinical diagnostic accuracy of the Brain Doctor system for Alzheimer’s disease is more than 90%, which greatly improves the diagnostic accuracy of Alzheimer’s disease in primary hospitals. It can be said to be the first technology in China and an international leader.”
And at the community level, Dr. Brain has developed the easy-to-move and more cost-effective VR eye movement cognitive assessment system. Based on the characteristics of cognitive disorders, Dr. Brain utilizes VR technology to build an immersive task testing environment for subjects, i.e., completing games such as catching fireflies, supermarket shopping, and ping-pong through eye movement control. Subsequently, the eye movement trajectory of the participant during the execution of the task is recorded and analyzed in real time through eye movement capture, assessing his/her cognitive abilities such as attention, abstraction, memory, calculation, and execution of recollection, so as to allow the patient to complete the screening and diagnosis of the disease quickly during the game. Currently, Dr. Brain’s eye movement screening system has obtained the first batch of digital medical certifications for cognitive disorders in China.
In addition, Dr. Brain has developed a cognitive rehabilitation system based on VR technology, aiming to solve the Alzheimer’s disease treatment challenges. Based on the theoretical foundation of neurocognitive science, Dr. Brain has designed and integrated a variety of cognitive stimulation and training to build up a digital rehabilitation training platform. The platform focuses on improving specific brain cognitive functions such as memory, attention, and executive function through eye movement cognitive exercises combined with sports. At the same time, the platform is combined with the VR eye movement cognitive assessment system to form a “diagnosis-treatment-diagnosis” service model, providing patients with more accurate rehabilitation programs. Currently, this type of technology is in line with the recommendations of the National Health Commission’s ‘China Guidelines on Cognitive Training (2022 Edition)’.
As the country attaches more importance to the screening, popularization, and treatment of cognitive disorders, Alzheimer’s disease related products on the market side should also follow up in time to meet the market demand. Dr. Wang said, “Through the combination of AI imaging and digital therapy, Dr. Brain has formed the only brain science medical company in the market that has formed a digital closed-loop solution for screening, diagnosis and treatment of AD.”
After years of independent research and development, Dr. Brain has also developed a pipeline of central nervous system diseases such as stroke and cerebral white matter lesions, and built a closed-loop medical service of “early screening, diagnosis, and treatment” through the three platforms of Dr. Brain, Dr. Brain, and Digital Therapy. In particular, Dr. Brain has developed the most advanced AI-assisted diagnostic system on the market for stroke, which has the highest disability and death rates. The system utilizes the technology of imaging AI to accurately output the diagnostic indicators of stroke and help doctors generate all the required clinical diagnostic parameters and analysis results for different types of stroke. It effectively reduces the difficulty of treatment and shortens the operation time, thus increasing the cure rate. At present, Dr. Brain Stroke AI Assisted Diagnosis System has been the first to obtain both NMPA and FDA certifications.