Machinery / Industrial Parts & Tools

Medtronic eyes new territory

A few days ago, according to Leifeng.com, Medtronic’s Indian subsidiary officially announced the establishment of a strategic partnership with Stasis Health, which is a subsidiary of Stasis Labs, a medical technology company.

The cooperative project of the two parties is a networked nursing bedside multi-parameter monitoring system. The monitor can simultaneously monitor the vital signs of six critically ill patients. Specific application scenarios include emergency intensive care unit, surgical intensive care unit, and highly dependent ward. , Antihypertensive wards and private wards.

Stasis Monitor uses predictive artificial intelligence technology to autonomously monitor and record key patient information. This technology has been approved by the FDA. Medtronic said that the platform can provide doctors with remote monitoring to observe the status of critically ill patients at any time.

Stasis co-founder Dinesh Seemakurty believes that this collaboration will make it easier for people to use Internet care monitoring solutions, reduce the distance between doctors and patients, and improve and reduce the face-to-face contact between caregivers and patients.

The critical illness monitoring product that Medtronic's Indian subsidiary cooperates with Stasis Health is not the first.

According to Leifeng.com, in June 2020, the FDA approved an emergency use authorization called CLEWICU. This product comes from CLEW Medical, a company founded in Israel. It uses AI-based algorithms and machine learning models to identify ICU patients. The possibility of a major clinical event.

CLEW pointed out that this is the first time the FDA has approved such a device. CLEW CEO Gal Salomon said that this provides the industry with a first-of-its-kind product that provides medical institutions with the key data needed to prevent life-threatening conditions.

In addition, it is not the first time that Medtronic has expanded new business in India.

According to official sources, Medtronic has established the largest overseas R&D center in India. In August 2020, Medtronic announced that it would invest US$160 million to expand its R&D center in Hyderabad, India, to build the largest Engineering and Innovation Center (MEIC) outside of the United States. The number of employees in the R&D center has also increased to more than 1,000. The center will provide the company with software and engineering services in the fields of heart, nerve, kidney and minimally invasive surgery.

The main business to get rid of the epidemic situation?

Medtronic's footsteps in China are also continuing. On June 2, 2021, Medtronic Innovation Center (Chengdu) officially opened in Xinchuan Innovation and Technology Park, High-tech Zone, Chengdu, Sichuan Province. At present, China has also become the only market in Medtronic with a dual innovation center in the world.

The clinical training of the center covers minimally invasive surgery, heart and blood vessel, kidney health, spine, orthopedics, neurosurgery and other fields.

Medtronic is a world-renowned medical device company whose main business includes cardiovascular business portfolio, surgical business portfolio, neuroscience business portfolio and diabetes business. In August of this year, the company’s first quarter financial report for the 2022 fiscal year showed that the first quarter’s net sales were US$7.987 billion, an increase of 23% year-on-year; the net profit attributable to the company was US$763 million, an increase of 57% year-on-year; Share income was US$0.56, compared with US$0.36 in the same period last year.

By region, the US revenue in the first quarter was US$4.101 billion, accounting for 51% of the company’s revenue, a year-on-year increase of 22%; non-US developed market revenue was US$2.601 billion, accounting for 33% of the company’s revenue, a year-on-year increase 20%; Emerging market revenue is 1.286 billion US dollars, accounting for 16% of the company's revenue, a year-on-year increase of 31%.

By business, cardiovascular business revenue was US$2.89 billion, a year-on-year increase of 18.8%; surgical business revenue was US$2.322 billion, a year-on-year increase of 28.9%; neuroscience business revenue was US$2.204 billion, a year-on-year increase of 28.7%; diabetes business Revenue was US$572 million, an increase of 1.8% year-on-year.

It can be seen that the cardiovascular business remains strong, while the diabetes business is still in the stage of exerting force.

The future medical care will be more than one kilometer

The purpose of medical treatment is to solve human pain points, which means not only rooted in the present, but also in the future.

In August this year, in the list of "5G+ Medical and Health Application Pilot Projects" announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Health Commission, remote diagnosis, remote treatment, and remote intensive care (ICU) are all key applications. The application of artificial intelligence in the remote monitoring of critically ill patients and disease prediction, in the context of the global spread of the new crown epidemic, can help alleviate the shortage of ICU resources and respond to major clinical situations in a timely manner. It is a stimulus of multiple factors such as market demand and technological progress. The product under.

Under the epidemic situation, the clinical management of intensive care and other departments and the monitoring of vital information of critically ill patients are more important.

The Medical Data Application Technology Research Working Group of the Approval Center reported in the first management committee in 2020 and the work summary meeting for the first half of 2020. During the epidemic prevention and control period, the working group worked with multiple hospitals and medical enterprises to manage massive data for severe cases , The frequent false alarms, alarm fatigue, missed diagnosis and misdiagnosis of data, etc., in Wuhan Red Cross Hospital, Wuhan Tongji Hospital Sino-French New City District, Wuhan Wuchang Hospital established a vital information data remote ICU/CCU management network platform, in the epidemic Played a more important role in the resistance war.

Gal Salomonce mentioned above also said that in an ordinary hospital, the intensive care unit is usually the smallest department of the hospital, accounting for only about 9% of the beds, but it occupies 31% of the hospital's budget.

From a global perspective, medical artificial intelligence is still in the early stages of development.

Cao Ying, vice president of Medical Intelligence Intelligence, said when attending the Big Whale Summit that artificial intelligence technology is currently mainly used in five areas, including treatment planning, image processing, data processing, decision support and in vitro diagnosis. The clinical positioning of the product is to assist doctors and reduce the repetitive manpower input of doctors.

The development of medical artificial intelligence is affected by many factors such as policy encouragement, market demand and technological progress. Thanks to the support of national policies and the early start of database information collection, the medical artificial intelligence industry in the United States has developed relatively fast. In recent years, my country's AI medical care has also been continuously developing and innovating, and relevant policies have also regulated and guided the development of the industry.

In August 2018, the new version of the "Medical Device Classification Catalog" came into effect, clarifying the classification criteria for artificial intelligence medical products. In July 2019, the Instrument Examination Center of the State Food and Drug Administration established an artificial intelligence medical device innovation cooperation platform.

A former employee of Yitu Technology said in an interview with a reporter from 21st Century Business Herald that since 2015, medical imaging AI companies have emerged in an endless stream. These companies pursue a fast-to-market and fast-iterative model for clinical data and clinical use. There is a great demand for feedback. Therefore, for a long time, it has been a free gift system to enter the hospital in order to obtain in-hospital data training and clinician feedback.

The law of the market is: truly valuable products will not be rejected, only accurate and efficient, can they be accepted. Among them, companies should consider how to make products better meet clinical needs, improve their ability to respond to different application scenarios, and solve the pain points of patients and doctors in the medical process.

From 2016 to 2021, hope, confusion, and confusion hang over the tide of AI medical care. The dreams brought about by the industry's rising period are mixed with many difficulties that have to be faced. The iron law of crossing the river by feeling the stones does not seem to be effective. How to treat the stones in your hands has become the most difficult problem.