Deal focus: Medbanks brings big data to China cancer care

One of the Chinese medical industry’s lesser-known secrets is that it was once a favorite activity of Chinese oncologists to share their patients’ charts with each other, according to industry participants. This was out of necessity: for years, the country lacked a centralized clinical database on cancer.

One of the few ways for doctors to gain better insights into the disease, given its highly complex nature, was to exchange information on patients with fellow professionals. However, this inefficient approach could not deliver effective care in the long run. 

This situation finally changed in 2014, with the launch of online oncology clinical data provider Medbanks. The Beijing and Shanghai-based company’s main product comprises a database of cancer patients and doctors, academic papers, and artificial intelligence and big data-powered models which assist in the cost management of customized treatments. 

Now investors including Eight Roads Ventures, F-Prime Capital, CDH Investments, IDG Capital, Tencent Holdings, and CLP Fund - a joint venture between CICC Capital and a unit of Chinese state-owned China Electronics Corporation - have backed a RMB400 million ($59 million) Series C round for Medbanks, betting on the company’s leadership in the field. 

“We had a shared vision with the management team that in order to truly transform and advance cancer care in China, one must be able to access, partner with, and influence oncologists, and just as importantly, that all efforts to innovate must be powered by high-quality clinical data,” says Rebecca Lin, a partner at Eight Roads. Eight Roads, the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International, is one of Medbanks’ strongest supporters, having backed all of its funding rounds since 2015.

Medbanks claims its database represents the largest repository of oncology clinical data, encompassing hundreds of thousands of cases of all major tumor types across major cancer centers throughout China. In addition, it has an online pharmacy dedicated to oncology drugs

Prior to launching the company, founder and CEO Peter Ma worked as the director of sales for oncology drugs at German multinational pharmaceutical company Bayer AG, as well as a sales director at Schering, another German company. The company’s core management team includes medical and technology professionals with deep knowledge of oncology.

Boston-based F-Prime, a sister fund of Eight Roads under the Fidelity family, has pinned its hopes on the ability of Ma and his team to stay ahead of their rivals.

“The core asset that has enabled Medbanks to amass these resources, and the company’s real competitive differentiation, is its team, led by Peter Ma. The cumulative industry experience and oncology key opinion leaders’ relationship-years that the team possesses is simply unparalleled,” says Kevin Chu, an associate on the healthcare team at F-Prime.

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• Topics
• Greater China
• Healthcare
• Expansion
• China
• TMT
• CICC
• Tencent
• CDH Investments Management
• Eight Roads
• IDG Capital Partners