A Chinese company implied that they are going to launch their product overseas, particularly in tuberculosis-imposed regions. Although the company sells hope, the project's implementation in underdeveloped areas faces massive challenges.
Infervision (推想科技), a Chinese MedTech company, revealed intriguing insights on its tuberculosis diagnostic support product at the World Health Assembly in Geneva. The company implied that they are going to launch their product overseas, particularly in tuberculosis-imposed (TB) regions.
Infervision provides several solutions including, among others, lung cancer and stroke medical-imaging diagnostics supports for the use of doctors. Amongst its competitors in the same area, Deepwise (深睿医疗), VoxelCloud (体素科技) and Huiyihuiying (汇医慧影), Infervision distinctively focused on lung cancer diagnosis and strives to be a global company. (Find more on Infervision's global expansion in this in-depth coverage)
The company's tuberculosis initiative is a strategic one and may be fruitful in the long term.
First, MI diagnosis process is based on the cumulative saturation of the big data, which yields better learning of the machine and results in a more precise AI for the product. Thus, Infervision's expertise in lung cancer imaging and diagnosis presumably facilitates the company's overall operational effectiveness and fruitfulness of the tuberculosis product. Infervision will likely to enjoy the early mover's advantage.
Secondly, tuberculosis is a third-world countries' problem, but a Chinese company could find an advantage to collect data from China and apply its intelligence overseas. In 2018, there were 1,110,659 tuberculosis cases in China, with around 94% success rate of treatment. Indeed, the clinical experience from China can be well implemented in the regions where tuberculosis severely hit. Infervision's team is well-equipped and designed to operate in overseas as a global company.
However, application of such a technology in Africa and SEA is only a sweat dream if contemporary infrastructure capacity of these regions considered. The prerequisite of applying an MI diagnostic software is having a necessary healthcare infrastructure, such as MI and Xray devices.
Hence, Infervision's tuberculosis initiative is only a long-term one to be implemented in developing regions. Nevertheless, the company has further approached to provide a complete circle of AI-driven healthcare services and might eventually enjoy being an early mover in the industry.
Tuberculosis product shows that Infervision is trying to catch up with Yitu Tech (依图科技) and 12 Sigma (图玛深维) in terms of product diversity, as well.
On December 7, 2018, Infervision completed its Series C, led by CDH Investments(鼎晖投资) and followed by Sequoia China, Haitong Leading Capital Management, Taihe Capital(泰和资本), Advan Tech Capital, Xiang He Capital(襄禾资本) and Genesis Capital.
Infervision claimed that its services have been used in around 200 hospitals worldwide and provide daily assistance with approximately 20,000 scans for lung cancer screening: which constitutes the most critical investment indicators for an AI-driven diagnosis assistance provider companies.