Interview With Xu Mingyan, Founder, Chairman And CEO Of Hiploos

Since the beginning of this year, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has a sustained impact on the whole biomedical industry, and gradually transmitted to all aspects of the industrial chain.

The biopharmaceutical enterprise focusing on accurate diagnosis and treatment of cancer is no exception. Its main tumor detection business is greatly affected by the suspension and contraction of public hospitals. But on the other hand, hapoulos also began to actively develop a new type of coronavirus nucleic acid detection kit, joining the army of nucleic acid detection.

At present, the detection kit of hiploos has been approved and entered the white list of the Ministry of Commerce, and can be exported to the European and American markets. In addition, hiploos also undertakes the daily inspection of frozen seafood, supermarkets and hotels in Shenzhen.

From the technical point of view, compared with tumor gene detection, the technical requirements of nucleic acid detection are relatively low. More challenges lie in the overall operation ability of the enterprise and the processing capacity of a large number of samples.

Recently, Xu Mingyan, founder, chairman and CEO of hapoulos, introduced in an exclusive interview with 21st century economic reporter that tumor gene testing may process dozens of hundreds of samples a day, but nucleic acid testing may process tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of samples a day. Talking about whether the nucleic acid detection business will become the turning point of hypoulos, Xu Mingyan told reporters: "this is because the country needs to do some new business, our main strategy will still focus on the tumor track."

The biomedical industry in Dawan district is rising

Southern Finance: graduated from the University of New Mexico with a doctor's degree in biomedical sciences and worked for Cambridge genomics company in the United States. How did you choose to return from Silicon Valley and then start a business in Shenzhen?

Xu Mingyan: first of all, Shenzhen is a very young city. It has certain advantages in supporting and accommodating SMEs in Entrepreneurship and innovation. The overall business environment is conducive to entrepreneurship. Secondly, compared with the rest of the world, Shenzhen is the most similar to Silicon Valley. In many aspects, for example, its support for entrepreneurship and innovation has surpassed that of Silicon Valley. It is the most suitable group for people like us to come back and start businesses. In addition, we had two classmates in Shenzhen before, so we decided to go back to Shenzhen without much hesitation.

Nanfang finance and Economics: in terms of regional development, the biomedical foundation in East China is stronger than that in South China, and Shenzhen is not strong in biomedicine and medical resources. However, hapoulos still chooses to develop in Shenzhen. After the company's actual implementation, does it feel the aftereffect of regional development?

Xu Mingyan: at present, Shenzhen is not the strongest in the field of biomedicine in China, but we should look at this problem from both sides. Shenzhen is not the strongest, but it has great market demand and national strategic demand. Therefore, the government sees such a situation that the current development is still underdeveloped and gives strong support to the relevant industries in Shenzhen and the whole Dawan district. Moreover, the biomedical industry is one of the strategic emerging industries in Shenzhen, so the policy friendliness is very high. In addition, Shenzhen has a relatively good foundation of medical device enterprises, forming a certain degree of industrial linkage development effect, such as Mindray, Huada intelligent manufacturing, etc., and gene sequencing has a certain industrial foundation.

The private enterprises in Shenzhen are developing very fast and have played a very good role model. Therefore, I firmly believe that Shenzhen can also do well in the biomedical industry. What we start a business is an industry with great potential and needs a city with great potential, so that we can have the opportunity to exert our strength.

Nanfang finance and Economics: in the past few years since returning to Shenzhen to start a business, do you feel the advantages of Talent Gathering in Shenzhen? Or will there be a shortage of talents?

Xu Mingyan: there are several characteristics of Shenzhen's talent situation. First of all, it has obvious advantages in introducing high-end talents from overseas, which has formed a positive and virtuous circle effect. Moreover, the government has issued a series of policies to recruit and attract talents, which has achieved very good results. It can be seen that in the past 10 years, Shenzhen has introduced many high-end talents including academicians.

In the case of our enterprise, there are also many doctoral and postdoctoral talents who come back from overseas. However, as far as the biomedical industry is concerned, Shenzhen is short of some high-level marketing and sales personnel. Many foreign pharmaceutical companies have their headquarters in Shanghai or Beijing. Traditionally speaking, most of these market personnel will also be concentrated in Shanghai and Beijing. Therefore, the biomedical industry in Shenzhen has to work harder in this area. The shortage of talents in this field is relatively obvious.

In addition, some graduates of master's degree have become the mainstay of the company after working for four or five years, which is of great importance to the development of enterprises. Although the wage level is very high, they will also face the test of marriage, family and high house price.

Nanfang finance and Economics: in the market environment of biomedical industry, the protection of intellectual property rights has attracted a lot of attention. Does Shenzhen have any favorable policies on intellectual property protection for enterprises?

I think the intellectual property rights of Shenzhen should be protected in the forefront of the whole country. Some local laws and regulations on the protection of intellectual property rights were also issued some time ago. Our company has applied for more than 100 invention patents at home and abroad. In fact, the United States has also paid attention to our relevant intellectual property protection measures. At present, we have done a very good job.

Is the rapid outbreak of gene testing industry coming?

Nanfang finance and Economics: as far as the innovation mechanism of enterprises is concerned, HIPROS accounts for a large proportion of R & D expenses. Is our current operation mode completely independent R & D, or will we cooperate with universities and institutions, or do we not exclude capital operation such as M & A?

Xu Mingyan: because of the particularity of the biomedical industry and the current stage of our company, the research and development costs are indeed very high. Our R & D expenditure accounted for 70% - 80% in 2018 and almost 40% in 2019. At present, the annual R & D expenditure has maintained a proportion of more than 20% - 30%. Because this is an emerging industry, it needs continuous investment in R & D, new products constantly, and the product line should be constantly improved and enriched.

In addition, we also try to cooperate with university research institutes, including universities such as Peking University and South University of science and technology; we also cooperate with hospitals, such as people's Hospital and Peking University Hospital. In the process of cooperation, we will combine their existing research foundation and our R & D plan to create a R & D mode with one plus one greater than two or even greater than three.

At present, basically all of them are independent research and development, and there is no way of M & A. However, in the next two or three years, it may be more extensive to acquire some foreign technologies.

Nanfang finance and Economics: compared with other industries, what are the greater risks in R & D of big health industry, such as biopharmaceutical testing?

Xu Mingyan: the proportion of R & D investment in the whole biomedical industry, especially in innovative medical devices and drugs, is very high. If he is doing medicine, he may have spent the first ten years without any income. We may be a little better in testing. We have invested in the first two or three years, but we will continue to get income in the future. At a certain stage, some profits will be generated. Compared with traditional industries, the investment time and cycle of biomedical industry will be much longer, and the risk will naturally be higher.

However, in the long run, it is still highly profitable. First of all, medicine is necessary for people's livelihood. At present, almost all immunotherapy drugs and so on, maybe more than 90% of them come from Europe and the United States, relying on imports. This is a huge market short board for China, so our country needs to invest, and enterprises like us also need to invest in R & D.

At the same time, the rate of return is very high. For example, our testing products can achieve tens of millions of sales a year, and many products can reach hundreds of millions of sales, so the proportion of R & D investment is very high, which brings risks and returns.

Nanfang finance and Economics: affected by the epidemic situation, the third-party testing seems to have entered a stage of rapid development. What do you think is the most needed breakthrough point in the biomedical industry? Or what are the deficiencies that need to be improved in the biomedical testing industry?

Xu Mingyan: as far as the gene sequencing industry is concerned, in Europe, America, Japan, South Korea and other countries and regions, third-party testing is very recognized, accounting for more than 50% of all hospitals. China's third-party laboratory testing now accounts for a small proportion.

As far as the supervision of European and American countries is concerned, when it comes to technology, he will supervise your technical principles and logic, not the products you are making. Therefore, he supervises your system rather than your products. This is more consistent with the development of cancer and gene sequencing industry, because drug development is changing rapidly. This kind of supervision is worth learning from.

We have also learned recently that a drug evaluation center will be located in Shenzhen, Dawan district. This should greatly promote the biomedical industry. I believe the industry will have a new look in the next few years.

Nanfang finance and Economics: up to now, hypoulos has reached a certain scale. What's the vision of the future in the whole subdivision track?

Xu Mingyan: we hope that in the future, we will focus on tumor gene testing, which is the most reliable, scientific and medical company in China. We hope to be the first in China, and also hope that we will become the world's leading life science and technology company.