Various American digital health companies have already teamed up with China’s Jianke, an online healthcare platform. Jianke has partnerships with huge brands such as Pfizer, and with startups such as Boston-based startup Biofourmis. Biofourmis is a digital therapeutics company that has been looking for access to a larger pool of information. These companies now have access to Jianke’s two million chronic disease patients, which will provide them with far more information to work with. Biofourmis isn’t the only startup exploring the huge pool of information in China, and several startups are looking to gain access to information provided by China’s huge population.
The reasons why China presents such a huge opportunity for digital health companies are multiple. First, China has a huge base of highly tech-savvy consumers that US companies can potentially gather information from. Chinese citizens also are more likely to be connected to health devices than citizens of most other countries as well, which is great for digital health research when combined with China’s sheer size. 36% of Chinese consumers wear a “smart bracelet”, while only 16% of the global population does.
While China has the supply which US digital health companies are looking for, they also have a demand which US digital health companies can help them with. China is suffering from a shortage of doctors, with 1.8 physicians available per 1000 citizens, compared with the 2.6 physicians available per American citizen, according to OECD data. This shortage of doctors in China has led the Chinese medical industry to seek other health tools as China invests more into healthcare. China has the fastest-aging population in the world, and the country will be spending over $1 trillion per year on healthcare by 2020, up from just $350 billion in 2011, completing the portrait of a perfect opportunity for US digital health companies.
