China healthcare AI start-up Huimei gets $41m Series D
Eastern Bell Capital has led a Series D round of more than CNY 300m (USD 41m) for Huimei Cloud Technology, a China-based provider of artificial intelligence-enabled (AI) software that helps doctors make clinical decisions.
Runzhang Venture Capital and Suzhou Yihe came in as new investors, while Qiming Venture Partners re-upped. Qiming led a USD 30m Series C round for the company in September 2019 with support from Huimei Capital and a corporate fund under drug development outsourcing specialist WuXi AppTec.
The company was established as a division of Huimei Healthcare Management Services, a business formed in 2015 by Hillhouse Capital and US-based non-profit medical group Mayo Clinic. It is led by Qi Zhang, who was previously head of the algorithm team for Alibaba Group's Tmall platform. Huimei Capital is an investment arm of Huimei Healthcare.
Huimei Cloud’s flagship product is Dr Mayson, a clinical decision support system (CDSS) that uses real-time data analysis and in-process AI smart prompting to improve clinical diagnosis and treatment decision-making. It covers specialist fields such as oncology, respiratory, cardiovascular, and cerebrovascular, as well as assorted mainstream medical conditions.
The company has designed its software to integrate with diagnostic-related groups (DRG) and diagnosis intervention packets (DIP), with a view to smoothing the pathway from diagnosis to treatment to payment and enabling hospitals to operate more efficiently.
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 use roughly the same level of resources.
DIP is China’s own system, underpinned by category-level rather than case-based payments. It is seen as part of a transition from project-based purchases to service bundle-based strategic purchases.
As of early 2022, Huimei Cloud’s solutions had been introduced in nearly 400 hospitals, including 34 of China’s top 100 medical institutions. Zhang said in a statement that there are now 700 partner hospitals.
“Huimei Cloud has seized the opportunity in hospital informatisation upgrades and medical insurance payment reform. Relying on years of accumulated technology and product expertise, it has gone deep into clinical processes and enabled improvements in the quality and efficiency of healthcare,” said Yingchun Zhu, a partner at Eastern Bell.
Other healthcare software start-ups addressing DRG and DPI integration include Aden Technology, which specialises in insurance. It raised CNY 200m in Series B funding last year.
Taihe Capital served as exclusive financial advisor on Huimei Cloud's Series D.
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