Technology and Finance· South China International Dental Exhibition
Joint planning
Interview, | Li Hui
Image courtesy of respondents
Hu Jiezhang, partner of Songbai Investment and CEO of Songbai Dental, defines the group as an "industrial builder", focusing on the essence of medical treatment and promoting oral technology and digital innovation.
Songbai Investment Group, which has been quietly rooted in the oral industry for the past 7 years, does "difficult and correct things" and is not familiar to the outside world. With the rising heat of the oral industry, as a common supporter behind a star dental enterprise, The Pine Cypress Investment Group, which is committed to becoming a "dental industry builder", has gradually been concerned by the big health industry.
A few days ago, Hu Jiezhang, partner of Songbai Investment Group and CEO of Songbai Dental, was interviewed by the reporter of Science and Technology and Finance to share his observations and thoughts on the oral industry. This entrepreneur who is deeply involved in the field of informatization and technology has a deep understanding of China's dental industry, and he has become friends with excellent Chinese technology companies such as Angelalign, Pintai Technology, FeatherCare DeepCare, and exquisite mobile phones, and has entered the game and built a service network connecting grass-roots oral medical care.
In Hu Jiezhang's view, the dental industry must return to the essence of medical treatment in order to be sustainable, so whether technological innovation and products can improve the service quality and efficiency of doctors are the primary factors. For the "big heat" of the oral track in recent years, he said that the large-scale influx of capital is undoubtedly a "double-edged sword".
On the one hand, it provides capital for industry innovation and accelerates the process of oral industrialization;
On the other hand, it is the irrational prosperity of the industry under the competition of capital, and the dental industry is mistakenly regarded as the consumption mode of the Internet to develop.
Industry insights
Before joining Songbai Investment Group, Hu Jiezhang has started many businesses and served as an executive in the global IT service company Achevo Exhibition Group and the domestic software listed company Beyondsoft, and has rich management experience in both start-ups and large enterprises. Since entering the dental industry in 2018, he has always attached great importance to the technology and digital innovation of the dental industry with a deep technical background.
"I have always believed that the integration of digital technology and industry is the core driving force for industrial upgrading and innovation." Hu Jiezhang told reporters.
In Hu Jiezhang's view, the current oral industry as a whole is still traditional, whether in terms of equipment, consumables, industry supply chain efficiency management, the penetration rate of digital technology is still low. Therefore, the digital transformation based on improving the efficiency of the whole industry and the landing of technologies and intelligent scenarios such as artificial intelligence (AI) and big data will be the future development trend of the industry.
He said that in the past, many dentists in China mainly relied on manual and experience to carry out treatment, but at present, digital technologies, products and services such as intraoral scanners, chairside digital solutions, surgical robots, and AI diagnosis have begun to empower doctors, and through the digital reform of the supply side, it can greatly improve the treatment efficiency of doctors, and also improve the quality of service and patient experience.
According to data from consulting firm Frost & Sullivan, the market size of China's digital medical services market was 23.2 billion yuan in 2019 and is expected to reach 739.5 billion yuan by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of 37.0%, and the momentum of development is amazing.
Another "China's Dental Industry in a Global Perspective - 2020 China's Oral Industry Digitalization Trend Survey Report" from the International Exchange and Cooperation Center of the National Health Commission shows that in 2019, the global oral industry scale was about 27.6 billion US dollars, compared with 25.9 billion US dollars in 2018, and the global oral industry market increased by 6.5%. There is a sentence in the report that deserves attention: "The digital level of the oral industry determines the upper limit of the digital service level of downstream oral clinical services." ”
Among them, there are a lot of opportunities.
In the past seven years, the Group has solved the pain points of the industry in all aspects of the oral industry chain by promoting innovative empowerment means such as high technology.
Hu Jiezhang said that the clinical development of the oral industry is inseparable from the development of scientific and technological innovation, and innovative breakthroughs in all aspects need to be combined with the clinical needs of doctors in order to make the patient experience better and promote the rapid development of the entire industry. "So we pay attention to the essence of medical treatment, choose long-term industrial construction, rather than financial investment in the traditional sense, so we pay more attention to the scientific and technological innovation of enterprises and the ability to serve doctors, whether it can help the development of the industry."
Overcome pain points
Hu Jiezhang said that since its establishment in 2015, Songbai Investment Group has begun to systematically study the pain points of the oral industry and find solutions in the global pattern.
From the training and education at the far end of the industrial chain, to the orthodontics, implants, bioregenerative materials, prosthetic materials, imaging equipment, intraoral scanners, etc. in the middle reaches, to the clinic management software, e-commerce platforms and distribution services in the middle reaches, and finally to the downstream stomatological hospitals and clinics, Songbai Investment Group has penetrated into various oral segments, and through long-term investment and down-to-earth construction, it has carried out technical iteration and professional talent training for dentistry and overcome the pain points of industry development.
It is precisely this kind of value that attracts high-tech enterprises such as Angelalign, Pintai Technology, Altron, Puter Medical, and Meditech to join the industrial map of Songbai. Among them, Angelalign was officially listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in June last year, becoming China's "orthodontic first stock".
"In our eyes, the mark of corporate success is not whether it is listed or not. We believe that as long as we can really help doctors solve the core pain points and improve the efficiency of the entire industry, we will become a respected enterprise and can become bigger and stronger. As a result, we don't focus too much on the financial returns and short-term benefits of the business. Hu Jiezhang said.
Speaking of the development of domestic digital technology, Hu Jiezhang said with a heavy heart. "Many grassroots doctors and clinics also want to have digital equipment for oral diagnosis and treatment. We hope to promote the widespread popularization of high-quality, high-performance, and cost-effective domestic products, which can help every doctor achieve treatment level and efficiency improvement, which will be of great value to the digital development of the entire industry. ”
Last year, Songbai Investment Group made a strategic investment in Pintai Technology to help Pintai achieve breakthroughs in core technology research and development, product iteration, professional customer service and other strategic directions. "For many teeth treatments, whether implants or orthodontics, oral modeling is the first step, and through digital technology, the ability to model can be improved. Intraoral scanners are an important part of capturing patients' intraoral information and digitally modeling digitally. By comparing a variety of mouth sweepers on the market, we found that the mouth sweeper independently developed by Pintai Technology is the smallest in the world, allowing doctors to scan the patient's full mouth like holding a pen, and the patient's experience is also very good. ”
Hu Jiezhang recalled two main factors that impressed him at that time, one was the innovative technology of the enterprise, and the other was the scientific research spirit of the founder Ao Mingwu. "When I communicated with Mr. Ao, the founder of Pintai, he was an entrepreneur with a scientific research background and had a deep understanding of the difficulties encountered by doctors in treatment. Mr. Ao's dream is to digitize the global oral cavity, and he hopes to use technological innovation to bring dentists better, more economical, smaller and better performance excellent products, so that every dental patient can enjoy different treatment experiences brought by advanced technology. ”
Hu Jiezhang said that looking back on his experience in the past 4 years or so, what he has always insisted on is to find and support entrepreneurs who have dreams in the oral industry and pursue scientific and technological innovation. "Through industrial construction, we come together with these entrepreneurs with dreams and big patterns because of the common concept and grow together, which is the greatest pleasure in my work."
Industrial construction
In Songbai Investment Group, Hu Jiezhang has another role, that is, the CEO of Songbai Dental. Speaking of the original intention of establishing Songbai Dentistry, Hu Jiezhang said, "At present, China's oral medical industry is very fragmented, with more than 100,000 single SKUs of upstream product manufacturers, and more than 100,000 downstream dental clinics.
The Group will reach more medical institutions through Songbai Dental's nationwide network channels and Songbai Mall's 'online + offline' service model, bringing excellent products and professional services to dentists. At the same time, Songbai Dental's SaaS clinic management software (Easy Dentist) provides clinic management, electronic medical records, CRM customer management, and clinic operation SOP standardized services for oral medical institutions.
At the same time, in terms of training and education, Songbai Dental has launched project platforms such as "Dentist Planet", uniting upstream manufacturers and medical institutions to provide online training and continuing education courses for dentists across the country, and also provides many customized free courses for primary dentists.
In addition to the well-known upstream product end and midstream platform end layout in the industry, Songbai Investment Group's investment in the downstream oral medical service field, especially in the construction of the industrial chain in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, has also begun to accelerate.
"The Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, especially Guangdong Province, has a very strong foundation in stomatology," Hu Jiezhang said, in this regard, the Group on the one hand in Huizhou, Heyuan, Dongguan, Shantou and other cities in the Bay Area, investment in the construction of medical, teaching, research integration development of large-scale stomatological hospitals, to create a "high-tech + oral medical services" model.
On the other hand, the Group hopes to establish a talent training base for medical service resources in the Greater Bay Area. For example, Hu Jiezhang, such as the "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Oral Health Alliance Implant Summit Forum" and the "2021 Annual Meeting of the Dental Physician Branch of the Guangdong Medical Doctor Association" hosted by Huizhou Stomatological Hospital, have improved the level of medical services for local doctors through resource sharing.
In addition, Hu Jiezhang said that Songbai Investment plans to set up artificial intelligence and big data centers and research bases, "We lay out the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, not only focusing on the development of single stomatological hospitals, we plan to form a regional demonstration effect from medical service institutions, talents, and then to research centers or experimental bases." ”
For many industries, the entry of capital will accelerate the development of the industry, but Hu Jiezhang said that this is not the case in the oral medical industry, and it is not possible to achieve speed. "What the dental industry needs is time and talent, and their business needs patience and understanding based on the industry's shared vision and mission."
"At Songbai Investment Group, we hope to help the industry to upgrade the industry through long-term investment in innovative technology and the construction of a digital ecological platform for the middle reaches of the oral cavity, and then enable 300,000 dentists across the country to use better products and services, and ultimately benefit every patient." I think it's valuable and meaningful. I want to make serving the health of the public my life's work. Hu Jiezhang told reporters.
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