Reprint |Chancheng's most beautiful science and Technology worker |Returnee doctor came to Chancheng to start a business for 5 years and developed ophthalmology equipment to create a domestic leader
Recently, Dr. Qin Jia, general manager of Guangdong Weren Medical Technology Co., LTD., finally received the long-awaited good news. As a core technical member, she independently developed a series of domestic high-end medical equipment products -- ophthalmic optical coherence tomography (OCT), which has been approved by the national Class II medical device registration certificate and listed for sale.
The product that Qin Jia and his team have been developing day and night for nearly three years can finally be put into the market. It has achieved a market breakthrough under the siege of foreign big brands, which will also greatly reduce the sales price of domestic ophthalmic OCT medical equipment, thus promoting the reduction of hospital inspection costs.
Due to the exploration of the industrialization in the field of optics, Qin Jia won the honorary title of the most beautiful science and technology Worker in Chancheng District awarded by Chancheng District Science and Technology Association. Recalling the decision to leave behind the excellent life and work and research opportunities abroad and return home to start a business, she believes that all the hard work is worth it. I hope to use the knowledge and technology I have learned to return to the motherland, so that doctors can use more cost-effective high-end medical testing equipment, so that patients get better diagnosis and treatment.
After learning to return to China, to serve the motherland with the technology learned
For a long time, the "high cost of seeing a doctor" has been a concern of all walks of life. Many people have the feeling that compared with medical expenses, the cost of examination has always been one of the important reasons for the "high cost of seeing a doctor". Behind this, high-end medical testing instruments have been monopolised by foreign countries for a long time, and the high price of equipment makes the cost of hospital examination high. OCT, as one of the essential examination equipment for the diagnosis and screening of ophthalmic diseases, is still mainly used by high-end hospitals, while primary hospitals lack such OCT equipment.
When she was studying at a university in China, Qin Jia's undergraduate and master's majors were closely related to optical instruments. In 2010, she was admitted with honors and studied for a DOCTORATE in biological engineering from the University of Washington. After graduation, he was hired by the University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine for postdoctoral research in ophthalmology. During the doctoral and post-doctoral periods, he devoted himself to the research of precision medical imaging technology. The scientific and technological achievements produced have been applied and promoted in cooperation with authoritative companies in the American ophthalmological medical device industry.
During this period, Qin Jia was committed to the research of functional imaging technology of biomedical photonics, using non-invasive, non-destructive, and high-resolution in vivo imaging to extract and analyze biomarker parameters, and published a number of papers in authoritative scientific journals in this field. Papers.
For such talents, many companies and scientific research institutes have thrown olive branches, and they have all provided Qin Jia with high-paying jobs and invited her to join. However, Qin Jia considered returning home. “Foreign ophthalmology patients can use the most advanced ophthalmology testing equipment for diagnosis and treatment. I hope Chinese patients can too. "Compared with doing basic research abroad, Qin Jia is more eager to return to China to start a business and make contributions to the motherland in improving eye health through the knowledge and research results accumulated over the years.
Resolutely start a business, break the monopoly of foreign products
In 2017, Qin Jia resolutely returned to China. Under the advice of peer experts in this field in China, she came to Chancheng, Foshan to become a distinguished professor in a university.
After some investigation and research, in 2017, Qin Jia and a number of returnee doctors and postdoctoral fellows jointly started a business and decided to establish Guangdong Weiren Meditech Co., Ltd. in Chancheng to focus on the research and development and production of high-end optical medical equipment for ophthalmology. In 2020, the company's team was approved to become an innovative and entrepreneurial team introduced by Guangdong Province's “Pearl River Talent Plan”.
Compared with other imaging technologies, OCT can provide morphological images of living tissue with micron-level resolution. In the medical profession, it is an attractive cutting-edge technology. The first product developed by Qin Jia's team was the ophthalmology OCT.
The research and development and production of OCULAR OCT equipment involves many industries and fields. In addition to optics, there are also electronics, mechanical design, software algorithms, etc. Although Qin Jia participated in the design of equipment drawings to the final application, there must be a distance from the development of basic theory and applied research to industrialization. Nowadays, to develop high-end OCT equipment produced in the country, there are still many technical difficulties that need to be overcome in front of them.
Qin Jia (first from left) is doing daily research and development work. /Photo by Zeng Xueying, reporter of Foshan Daily
To this end, Qin Jiahe's R&D team focused on researching a product from 2017 to 2020. They worked around the clock, often staying in the laboratory all night long during the critical period of overcoming technical problems.
Finally, in 2020, Qin Jia and the R&D team developed the first prototype. And got the registration certificate and related permits in November 2021, and can be officially put into the market.
Qin Jia introduced that the price of imported ophthalmological OCT equipment is often more than 1 million to 2 million units, while the equipment developed by Weiren, due to the basic localization of technology and parts, has more than 60 patents, and the cost is greatly reduced. The price is approximately 800,000 to 900,000 units. Nowadays, many domestic hospitals are very interested in domestic OCT equipment.
Equipped with AI technology, each instrument becomes a doctor
The first OCT developed by Weiren can finally be put on the market, but Qin Jia has already aimed at the next goal, AI-enabled OCTA optical coherence tomography vascular imager. Compared with the previous products, the scanning speed of the new product is faster, the scanning width is wider, and the scanned image is clearer, and it can extract a clear image of fundus blood vessels, load a number of analysis functions, and issue a pre-diagnostic report. Through this instrument, doctors can detect diseases such as diabetic retropathy and senile macular degeneration earlier through changes in the capillaries of the eye and pre-diagnosis reports, so that patients can get intervention and treatment earlier, which can improve medical effectiveness and quality of life.
Qin Jia (middle) is in a meeting with colleagues to discuss product research and development work. /Photo by Zeng Xueying, reporter of Foshan Daily
Qin Jia said that nowadays, similar OCTA ocular testing instruments from abroad are imported into domestic hospitals, and one requires nearly 2 million yuan. Many hospitals cannot afford this high cost. At the same time, these high costs will inevitably be passed on to patients. She hopes that the team can overcome technical problems and pass the equipment.Localization, on the basis of ensuring the quality and sound function of imaging, allows the price to be lowered so that more doctors and patients can use it.
By installing technologies such as AI and cloud platforms on existing equipment, and through AI algorithms, the detected data is uploaded to the cloud for analysis and report formation, providing a scientific reference for doctors' diagnosis“ "Especially for some areas where high-quality medical resources are relatively lacking, one device is equivalent to an AI doctor, which canTo a certain extent, the overall level of ophthalmology diagnosis in our country has been improved. ”
Qin Jia felt very honored to be awarded the title of the most beautiful science and technology worker in Chancheng District, and she was also very grateful to the Chancheng District Association for Science and Technology for granting her this honorary title. She believes that entrepreneurs need to deal with more affairs than a pure scientific researcher, but returning to China to start a business allows her to truly see that her knowledge can really help others, which makes her feel extremely satisfied. Qin Jia hopes that in the future, he will lead the team to continue to deepen the field of high-end medical devices in ophthalmology and help improve the level of ophthalmology in my country.
Reprinted from Foshan Chancheng District Science and Technology Society
