China medical big data player Aden secures $30m

Existing investors Sinovation Ventures and Eastern Bell Capital re-upped. Eastern Bell, Sinovation, and Legend Star led the first tranche of the Series B - amounting to CNY 200m - in March. The overall proceeds will be used for market expansion, recruitment, and brand building.

Founded in 2016, Aden initially focused on technology-enabled disease classification and quality control of medical records. It has provided big data services to nearly 4,000 medical institutions since its inception.

The company claims to be at the forefront of China's push into the diagnostic-related groups (DRG) field. DRG originated in the US as a system for calculating reimbursements under Medicare, the government's national health insurance program. It determines how much individual hospitals should receive on a per-product basis because patients within each category are clinically similar and expected to use roughly the same level of resources.

China has developed its own system - also underpinned by category-level rather than case-based payments - called the diagnosis intervention packet (DIP). It is described as part of a transition from project-based purchases to service bundle-based strategic purchases.

Aden claims that its DRG solution facilitates collaboration between hospital departments, integrating data flow to ensure consistency of information. It concentrates on short-term hospitalisation expenses, which account for 70% of overall medical expenses in China. Aden has also launched a DIP platform, following a directive from the National Medical Insurance Administration that DRG and DIP-based payments should be in place by 2025. 

The company claims speed as a competitive advantage. It can install a new product in a hospital within 48 hours, while half of all major functional upgrades are deployed within 12 hours. Aden provides DRG and DIP training as a value-added service.

“Sinovation has been paying close attention to the general trend of medical reform since 2018, supporting in-depth work conducted by Aden. Using artificial intelligence, big data and other means, Aden's software-as-a-service brings together professional medical services and commercial value, solving the problem of how to price medical operations," said Xiaolong Yang, a partner at Sinovation.

Leap Capital served as the exclusive financial advisor to Aden on the Series B extension.

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Save this article  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Greater China
• Healthcare
• Technology
• Financials
• Early-stage
• China
• artificial intelligence
• Sinovation Ventures
• Eastern Bell Venture Capital
• insurance