Ascend takes their healthcare portfolio companies on a China tour
China - In order to help Aiforia and Grundium explore business opportunities in China, Ascend Capital Partners planned and coordinated a week-long trip to China from 13-18 May. During this trip they met with potential customers and investors, key leaders in the Chinese pathology space and business partners across the commercial and academic sectors. The objective of this trip was to learn more about the Chinese market, gauge interest of Aiforia and Grundium products and start pre-sale discussions.
The companies met with potential investors, medical diagnostics experts and device distributors familiar with the business aspects of the medical field. They provided valuable insight on the market, competition and potential of these solutions in the Chinese market. These experts suggested innovative business models and sales tactics to make their products more marketable to Chinese buyers. They also provided solutions on how Grundium and Aiforia’s products can be reimbursed for clinical use through China’s insurance reimbursement codes.
On the research side, Grundium and Aiforia met with notable researchers in the oncology space, particularly interested in liver-related diseases. This group of professors expressed interest in using our companies’ solutions in their research projects and papers. One of these professors invited our companies to partake in their image analysis competition later in the year. At the Jiaotong University School of Life Sciences and Biotechnology, our teams met with students there to exchange and share ideas in the medical imagery space.
Both companies saw that there is great need for their solutions in the Chinese clinical market. China has a severe shortage of pathologists, having only 20,000 licensed pathologists according to the Chinese Pathologist Association to cover their growing population of 1.4 billion people. So Chinese hospitals and clinics welcome technologies that enable pathologists to work more efficiently and accurately. In the hospitals that we visited, they did not use digital scanners on a daily basis, and still relied on simple microscopes to conduct their analysis. Pathology department heads said that the Grundium and Aiforia’s solutions would be useful for their staff.
During this trip, the Ascend team accompanied Aiforia and Grundium CEOs and their support team to these meetings. We made initial introductions, facilitated discussions and most of the time served as the intermediate translator. Ascend was involved in the follow-up conversations with parties and provided a detailed action item report for both companies.
Having deepened local relationships, impressed potential customers and gained more knowledge about the Chinese markets it was considered a very successful trip to China. We look forward to seeing our companies expand and grow in this market.