Tencent is holding hands with Roche, and entering the oncology world is still a good one.

It has always been a good idea of ​​what kind of sparks will be wiped out when the Internet giants and the pharmaceutical giants hold hands.

Tencent, which has 1 billion social users recently, has collided with Internet and traditional medicine with Roche Pharmaceuticals, which has 1 billion patients. According to the news, Roche and Tencent signed a strategic cooperation memorandum at the Expo. The two sides will jointly explore the deep integration of the Internet and the medical and health industry, and apply the technology of big data and artificial intelligence to drug traceability and drug service. In terms of disease management and medical science, the two sides will give priority to the field of cancer diseases. Tencent’s ambition to enter the medical profession is well known. What is the purpose of this cooperation with Roche?

The field of medical cancer has always been the bone that Tencent wants to swallow but is difficult to swallow.

Tencent launched its WeChat Wisdom Hospital in 2014 and started the first shot to let Tencent enter the medical community. With the support of the number of powerful users and the support of Internet technology, it has invested in a series of online medical services such as products, clove gardens, and micro-medicine. Now online medical care has achieved certain advantages. However, due to the late physical medical layout, Tencent has been seeking offline breakthroughs, such as the launch of the "Sugar Doctor" blood glucose meter, entering the field of chronic diseases, and launching the artificial intelligence Tencent. In this way, Tencent is bent on entering the medical profession, but is not familiar with the offline medical business, and is still groping for it.

China is a big cancer country. According to the National Cancer Center's 2017 release, China's cancer death rate accounts for 27% of the world's total, and the number of cases is the highest in the world. With the big sale of the movie "I am not a drug god", the death of former CCTV host Li Wei, the word cancer has been pushed into the public eye. In the face of such a large cancer group in China, like other companies, Tencent's entry into the medical community is undoubtedly a deadly tumor market. As early as June 2016, Tencent led the tumor big data company Sipai Network. On August 5 this year, Tencent and the China Society of Clinical Oncology held the first expert meeting of strategic cooperation and established the first Tencent CSCO Strategy Expert Committee. Tencent's artificial intelligence products are also on the tumor, and Tencent's early screening of esophageal cancer is the first project to enter clinical trials. Tencent's frequent efforts in the tumor market, it is not difficult to see Tencent's determination to attack the tumor industry, and so many companies have not really joined forces with a pharmaceutical company in the field of cancer.

Roche is particularly strong in the field of cancer, and Tencent needs an entry point. Founded in 1896, Roche Pharmaceuticals entered China in 1926. Among them, pharmaceuticals involved in many fields and has always been in a dominant position in the pharmaceutical industry. According to the "Top 10 Global Pharmaceutical Companies in 2018" released by lgeahub, the companies that entered the list were : Roche, Pfizer, Abbott, Johnson & Johnson, Sanofi, Merck, Novartis, Gilead Science, GlaxoSmithKline and Amgen. According to statistics: In 2017, the top 10 pharmaceutical companies in the world sold a total of 437.257 billion US dollars, accounting for 40% of the global market share, of which Roche topped the list. The anti-tumor field has always been the core area of ​​Roche. According to "Top 10 Pharmaceutical Companines 2018-Oncology" by Lgeahub, a US medical consulting company, Roche's 17-year cancer business revenue was $25.09 billion, accounting for 43.73% of the company's total year-on-year. The top pillar. As a giant in the medical and cancer field, Roth is undoubtedly the best choice for Tencent to enter the oncology community.

China has always been Roche's second largest market, but China has a huge patient base and Roche has been actively deploying the Chinese market. When Shiwan visited China last year, he said: "China is entirely likely to surpass the United States to become the world's largest market for Roche Pharmaceuticals. This is not only the largest market for sales, but more importantly, its contribution to the world." China's huge potential has given Roche's global heads more new expectations. At the ASCO conference just past this year, Roche reviewed some of the data on his tumor pipeline to explain to the industry how he had clinical trials and gene sequencing to find opportunities in the field of lung cancer. Roche does not focus too much on new drugs and old drugs to expand the indications to maintain the tumor market, but to look at biomarkers and digital health tools. Although Roche's financial report is good, but facing the rising star of the pharmaceutical giants Novartis, Sanofi and other cancer fields, it also faces the challenge of domestic biosimilar drugs. It is a big trend to seek digital medical treatment. In February, Roche acquired the entire share of the cancer big data company Flatiron Health for $1.9 billion. Tencent, which is a big Internet in China, started its social platform and undoubtedly has great technical advantages in terms of data. Roche is a "empty nesting period" in China, giving Tencent opportunities.

Roche, or a test field where Tencent captured the tumor

Tencent started as a social software company, and now the social platform has reached a "bottleneck period." On August 15, Tencent released the unaudited financial report for the second quarter of FY2018. According to the financial report, Tencent’s total revenue for the second quarter was 73.675 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 39%. However, Tencent’s net profit declined in the second quarter, with net profit of only 17.8 billion yuan, down 2% year-on-year and 23% quarter-on-quarter, the first negative growth in 13 years. Among them, QQ monthly active accounts reached 803 million, down 5.5% from the same period of last year. Tencent is constantly exploring other industries in an attempt to find a new blue ocean across the border. According to public information, Tencent Cloud has more than 2,000 partners and more than 60 industry solutions. It has created some successful cases of digital transformation in the fields of government, medical, industrial, retail, transportation and finance.

However, the intelligent theory of relativity Yi Min believes that the most direct reason for Tencent to hold Roche at this time is because the tumor field is difficult to cut in, requires a springboard, and requires a test field. In 2017, Tencent released an artificial intelligence auxiliary diagnostic product - Tencent. Tencent Yingying used early screening for esophageal cancer as the first project to enter clinical trials. As an auxiliary diagnostic product, Tencent first turned its attention to early screening of cancer. At present, Tencent Yingying mainly supports early screening of lung cancer, esophageal cancer, cervical cancer and breast screening, and observation of diabetic retinopathy. Early tumor screening is usually targeted at asymptomatic high-risk groups, and they are more willing to trust more familiar drug companies for emerging AI technologies. Roche has always been a giant in the tumor industry. In the national anti-tumor chemical market, among the top 10 brands in sales, Roche has three, namely, Xeloda, Maetro, and Herceptin. The sales of the products in 2013 were all over 1 billion yuan.

In addition, Tarceva and Avitating are also above the 100 million level. Roche's drugs developed in breast cancer, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, non-small cell lung cancer, etc., occupy a high proportion in the cancer field, regardless of patient reputation or market share. Moreover, Roche Diagnostics, as the upstream of the gene sequencing industry chain, is a producer of genetic sequencer equipment and supporting reagents. It has been occupying a large market share in the field of in vitro diagnostics. Now, in cooperation with Tencent, Tencent can use its reputation in the oncology industry. Do business in the field of early tumor screening. If it is normal and smooth, this test field can directly produce better fruits, form a "flock effect", and quickly expand the mountains and expand the land.

Of course, this first step requires Tencent to accelerate targeted drug development with AI technology. With the government's control over medical expenses, more and more policies are introduced, and regulatory requirements will be strengthened. Especially for the relationship between income, risk and product cost, the pharmaceutical industry is facing a sharp decline in profit margin. . The major medical giants have to come up with coping strategies, and the R&D cost is the bulk of the expenditure of pharmaceutical companies. The drug development cycle is long, from the success of research and development to the time when the drug is listed for 7-10 years, and the patent protection period is only 20 years. It is difficult for enterprises to recover costs.

In theory, Roche and Tencent will use AI to help shorten the development cycle of new drugs. The biggest cost of medical research and development lies in clinical trials, and the failure and success of clinical trials for tumor-targeted drugs stems from the lack of effectiveness of drug candidates. The key to effectiveness is whether the target is correct. The way traditional clinical trials select targets requires constant hypothesis testing and then verification. The human and material resources involved are huge, and because there are about 500 cancer genes carried by the human body, thousands of genetic mutations will be generated. Designing multiple signal pathways and drug targets is prone to misjudgment and omission when manually interpreted. Through deep learning, AI can quickly find the molecular characteristics and biomarker targets from the huge tumor target database, and then quickly select effective drug candidates through deep calculation, which greatly shortens the development cycle.

Entering the oncology community? Tencent still has a genetic layout

Although he has just cooperated with Roche, the intelligent theory of relativity Yi Min believes that Tencent wants to take early screening of the tumor, it is still too early.

Tumor screening industry, not to mention the fierce competition in the domestic genetic testing industry, the current domestic Daan Gene, Berry Gene, Anke Bio, Burning Stone Medicine, Novo Zhiyuan and other companies have the ability to through technical cooperation Or obtain a sequencing reagent by means of independent research and development. Compared with the early screening of genetic testing methods, Tencent's filming is still in its early stages.

It is well known in the field of cancer that the general method of clinical genetic testing is that the detection mechanism performs DNA sampling from the patient, detects whether there are typical mutations associated with cancer by continuous measurement, and compares these mutations with known examples in the database. Finally, the doctor will give treatment recommendations based on the above information.

How to interpret the mysteries of genes has become a major problem in the contemporary life sciences; how to interpret gene big data, obtain disease-related mutations, find disease-causing genes, and develop targeted treatment programs are also the core links in the field of precision medicine . In the "First Precision Treatment Summit Forum", Professor Zhou Caicun and Professor Shen Lin agreed that multi-gene testing was approved and applied to the field of cancer, which is not only the biggest achievement in 2017, but also the future direction. The effect of the times. At the basic level, gene sequencing is the foundation of precision medicine. If Tencent uses AI technology to lay out its genetics, then Tencent’s entry into the oncology industry is really not a dream. Although Tencent has realized the importance of life science to future medical care at this year's WE conference, Tencent has not yet had a big move in the genetic field. On the other hand, Ali's layout in the genetic industry has been invested in China as early as 2012. Big gene, in 2015, Ali and the domestic large-scale genetic company Berry and Kang held hands. With the development of targeted drugs and the rise of biological immunotherapy, Tencent needs to increase its investment in life sciences in the future.

In short, Tencent and Roche's hands are just a starting point for Tencent to cross the tumor world. With the Roche brand to expand the influence of the medical circle, the follow-up should cooperate with more pharmaceutical companies. While the market is screaming at the Internet, Tencent may be able to take a slice if it can break through the bottleneck and develop the medical industry and continue to plow.

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