[Xinhua Daily Exclusive Interview] Metamorphosis · From Scientist to Entrepreneur | Chen Hong: Promote the localization of medical device coatings

Editor's note

The transformation of scientific and technological achievements is an important way to transform science and technology into real productivity. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the main characteristic of the development of today's global scientific and technological revolution is the transformation from 'science' to 'technology', and the basic requirement is the industrialization of major basic research results. How can the 'good seeds' of scientific research grow into the 'golden fruits' of industrial development, and how can the 'key variable' of scientific and technological innovation be transformed smoothly into the 'maximum increment' of new productivity?

Starting from August 11, Xinhua Daily·Intersection News will focus on a group of 'crossovers' with dual identities of 'scientists' and 'entrepreneurs' in Jiangsu's science and innovation field. They have successfully 'transformed' from scientists to entrepreneurs, and the blessing of their dual identities makes them different from ordinary scientific researchers or business leaders. This transformation, this process of cross-border and integration is a true portrayal of the 'last mile' of scientific research achievement transformation, and a vivid example of Jiangsu taking the lead in promoting the integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation.

Chen Hong inserted a slender catheter into the water and lifted it up after a moment. The reporter reached out and touched it, and the part dipped in water became very lubricated. 'This pipe uses our hydrophilic lubricating coating.' Chen Hong said.

The coating is attached to the surface of medical devices such as medical catheters, vascular stents, and artificial organs. The thickness is only microns, making it smoother for medical devices to enter the human body. It can also add antibacterial, anticoagulant, anti-crystallization and other functions as needed.

The coating also gave Chen Hong, a professor at Suzhou University, an identity - the chairman of Jiangsu Baisaifei Biotechnology Co., Ltd. ('Baisaifei' for short). Baisaifei, founded by Chen Hong in 2017, was rated as 'China's Potential Unicorn Enterprise' in 2022. Last year, it became a national-level specialized and new 'Little Giant' enterprise. In the first half of this year, it completed a new round of financing, with a cumulative financing of more than 300 million yuan.

Recently, at Baisaifei located in Suzhou Industrial Park, Chen Hong told reporters about her entrepreneurial story: 'Soochow University is close to BioBAY (Suzhou Biomedical Industrial Park), where there are many medical device companies. Some companies said that coated medical devices are basically imported, and there are almost no domestic coatings available on medical devices. I have worked in the field of surface and interface of biomaterials for more than 20 years, and I have many research results. I just want to use the research results on products.'

In February 2017, Chen Hong rented a 150-square-meter space in BioBAY with four people and embarked on the road to entrepreneurship. In May of that year, the team came up with a formula for a hydrophilic lubricating fluid. After its effect was verified by many customers, the team wanted to promote this coating liquid, but lacked promotion expenses. The opportunity came quickly - in September 2018, Suzhou held the 'Medical Device Innovation Week' event and provided a free booth to Baisaifei.

Chen Hong was invited to give a report at the event, describing the application of surface modification technology in medical devices, and mentioned Besaifei's participation in the exhibition. After the report, the small booth of Baisaifei was quickly filled with people, queuing up to receive the company's brochure. Looking back at this scene, the company's general manager Li Dan explained to reporters: 'At that time, the medical coatings that people in the industry knew about were mainly two or three foreign brands. However, imported coatings were very expensive and start-up medical device companies could not afford them. They wanted to find domestic coatings, so they were surprised to see us at the exhibition.'

In 2018, Baisaifei’s operating income reached more than 3 million yuan. It was profitable in the second year of business, which surprised the team.

The ability of new medical coating companies to quickly launch products and win customer recognition is undoubtedly closely related to the professional accumulation and academic level of the founders.

After graduating from Nanjing University with a PhD in polymer chemistry and physics in 2001, Chen Hong went to McMaster University in Canada to conduct postdoctoral research, crossing over from chemistry to the field of biomedical engineering. She returned to China in 2004 and became a professor at the School of Materials, Wuhan University of Technology. In 2010, she was introduced to Suzhou University as a distinguished professor. At Soochow University, she led the construction of the Key Laboratory of Macromolecules and Biological Surfaces and Interfaces, and served as the director of the Department of Materials and Chemistry from 2012 to 2016.

Suzhou University has created perfect scientific research conditions, and Chen Hong also led the team to make a series of innovative results in the research of surface and interface of biomaterials, especially the research of anticoagulation of biomaterials. When she started her business, she had already received funding from the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, was elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and was a well-known scholar in the field of biomaterial surfaces and interfaces.

'In terms of basic research on biomaterials, there is not much difference between domestic and foreign countries, but in terms of applied research, China lags behind significantly.' Chen Hong said frankly, 'Coating is a key raw material for high-end medical devices. The reason why we choose medical devices as the entry point for coating applications is that on the one hand, there is market demand, which can promote the development of domestic high-end medical devices; on the other hand, we know that technical people cannot do business. If we do something that others can do, customers will easily replace us, so it is difficult to do something with a high technical threshold. '

Faced with the gap between scientific research and business, Chen Hong, who 'cannot do business,' studied business management and dealt with investors. In addition to establishing a technical research and development team with 90% of masters and PhDs, it also introduced professionals in management, marketing, intellectual property and other fields.

'Teacher Chen has obvious entrepreneurial thinking and execution ability.' Wang Qun, investment director of Jinyu Maothur Investment Management Co., Ltd., has this impression of Chen Hong, 'I have contacted Teacher Chen more than a dozen times for financing. What she talks about most is not technology, but the company's operation management, the current situation of the industry, and what needs the company can solve.' This year, the new round of financing completed by Baisaifei was led by Jinyu Maoth.

It is not easy to teach starting a business, but Chen Hong was mentally prepared. A friend reminded her that 'coating is very niche,' and she thought to herself, 'It would be great to make it a niche category.' To her surprise, 'the more we do, the more things we do.'

'At first I thought I could just make a formula and let others take the formula and produce it. Later I discovered that to truly make a good product, in addition to the coating formula having to be adapted to various substrates, the coating process is very critical, because the coating process often involves complex chemical reactions. And the process relies on machines to achieve it, so coating equipment is also very important.'

In 2018, Baisaifei acquired an automation equipment company. Since then, the formulation team has collaborated with the equipment team early in the development of each new product. Such a mechanism effectively speeds up the product development process.

Medical devices are made of different materials such as plastic, silicone, and metal, and come in various forms. The coating is not all coated on the surface of catheters and guide wires, but may also be coated on the surfaces of springs, balloons and other objects, doubling the difficulty and making the safety test even greater. For example, after the balloon is accurately delivered to the vascular lesion through the guide wire, it will be quickly inflated and inflated to open the narrowed blood vessel. The coating applied when the balloon is not inflated must expand with the balloon and must not crack or fall off at all, otherwise it will cause medical risks.

For coatings on medical devices, robustness is a critical safety requirement. Whether micron-sized coating particles fall off when the product is in use, whether coating molecules are released into the liquid after soaking, etc., cannot be judged by the naked eye. Besaifei has developed testing instruments such as fully automatic friction testers, circulating particle collectors, and propulsion force testers to test the firmness, lubricity, uniformity and other indicators of coatings.

From coating liquid formula to coating process, coating equipment, testing methods and testing instruments, Besaifei has independent research and development capabilities for materials and equipment, and has built a full-chain development system from technology research and development to implementation.

Baisaifei also actively changes the situation of lack of standards in China. In February last year, the State Food and Drug Administration released the first domestic industry standard in the field of medical coatings - 'Test Method for the Firmness of Hydrophilic Coatings on Intravascular Catheter Guidewires.' Chen Hong is the first drafter of the standard, and Bai Saifei is one of the drafting units. 'In the past, everyone only knew that imported products were easy to use, but they didn't know why. This industry standard, in a sense, makes it clear to everyone what a good coating is.' Chen Hong said, 'Standardization is a key task to promote industrial development.'

Medical devices implanted or inserted into the human body can effectively reduce the risk of thrombosis if they have an anticoagulant coating. In terms of anticoagulant coatings, there is a big gap between China and developed countries. For example, the anticoagulant heparin coating has been used abroad for 30 to 40 years, but it started not long ago in China. Li Dan, who studied with Chen Hong for his master's degree and Ph.D., said: 'In recent years, our teachers have guided us to develop two major types of anticoagulant coatings, heparin and phosphorylcholine, allowing us to give full play to our professional advantages.' In May last year, Li Dan served as the first drafter, and two anticoagulant coating group standards jointly drafted by Baisaifei and other units were released, filling the gap in domestic in vitro evaluation methods of anticoagulant coatings and promoting the development and launch of devices with anticoagulant coatings.

In 2020, the company moved into a single-family building of approximately 5,000 square meters. In 2023, the wholly-owned subsidiary of BEST (Changshu) Biomaterials Co., Ltd. will start construction of China's first production base with an annual output of 100 tons of medical hydrophilic coating fluids. In March this year, a number of academicians were invited to participate in the Biomedical Materials Frontier and Transformation Summit Roundtable held at BEST. Liu Zhongfan, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences who has been paying attention to and supporting the development of Baisaifei, said with emotion: 'Our country's basic scientific research team is very large. In the field of materials, we are far ahead in the number of academic papers we have published. We cannot be satisfied with writing and publishing papers in the laboratory. We must be committed to writing papers on the motherland and doing a good job in collaborative innovation between government, industry, academia and research.'

Currently, Baisaifei has applied for 209 patents at home and abroad, and has obtained 140 patents. Among them, 47 coating-related domestic invention patents and 7 overseas invention patents were obtained. This year, one of the company's patents won the Excellence Award at the 25th China Patent Awards.

In the office building, in addition to the 'patent wall', there are dozens of large and small paintings mounted in glass frames. They, like patents, are the work of employees. It turns out that Chen Hong started learning chalk painting in the early days of starting her business. Later, she invited painting teachers to the company and called on employees to learn together. 'I tell everyone, don't set limits on yourself. Once you draw, you will know that you can do it.'

Chalk painting is also the art of coating. They explore on drawing paper and break the boundaries of personal abilities; they innovate in laboratories and production lines and broaden the boundaries of products and services.

Over the past eight years, the company's coating product matrix has expanded from the basic type - hydrophilic lubricating coatings, to 15 categories including anticoagulant, antibacterial, anticrystallization, antifouling, drug release, superhydrophobic coatings, etc. The medical devices involved are suitable for many scenarios such as neurointervention, cardiovascular intervention, non-vascular intervention, drainage, cardiovascular implantation, etc. The company's business model has evolved from sales of coating fluids, coating equipment, and testing instruments to inspection and testing of coated products, customized research and development of coatings, and registration services for special coated equipment. There are more than 500 domestic and foreign customers, 20% of which are leading companies in their respective fields. According to incomplete statistics, more than 200 products using Besaifei coatings have obtained certification from the State Food and Drug Administration, the US FDA, and the EU CE, and are sold at home and abroad.

'When many medical device companies communicated with us, they realized that they do not need to change the design of the product. As long as they add a high-quality coating with certain functions, the device can have new functions and form an innovative product.' Li Dan is very happy about this. 'Coatings not only serve medical devices, but also empower and even lead the innovation of medical devices.'

Chen Hong told reporters: 'There are many general managers and technical leaders of medical device companies who said that 'Besaifei coating is the ceiling of the coating industry.' This praise touched me, but my idea is that just like there is no ceiling in life, there is no ceiling for coatings. First, coatings can be used in many industries, and the market capacity is huge; second, coatings still have many scientific issues that need to be researched and broken through, and more cutting-edge products will appear.'

Although in recent years he has been committed to building a platform company for medical coatings, exploring the upstream parts of medical devices that are in short supply, and moving into the field of life science consumables, Chen Hong has always loved scientific research and teaching. In 2023, 'Biomaterial Surface Modification Technology and Its Application in Medical Devices' edited by her will be published by Science Press. This professional textbook contains both technical principles and a large number of application examples from the front lines of the industry. Currently, she also leads a research group composed of 7 teachers and dozens of graduate students to carry out teaching and research work.

New tasks are coming one after another: On August 26, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology announced 'the list of shortlisted candidates for the announcement of the biomedical materials innovation task (second batch)'. Among them, the 'phosphoryl choline-based polymer' material and the 'new anti-thrombotic material ε-lysine-based polymer' material are both led by Besaifei.

On August 27, the National Natural Science Foundation of China announced that the National Natural Science Foundation of China will receive centralized review results of application projects in 2025. The 'Research on the Mechanism and Application of Biomimetic Fibrinolytic Materials in Complex Physiological Environments' applied by Chen Hong as a professor at Suzhou University was approved as a key project. This research is expected to elevate China's medical coatings to an international leading position.

Entrepreneur Chen Hong and scientist Chen Hong will also paint beautiful works.

Aiming at industry needs, dare to think and act even more

From developing coatings to developing equipment, from selling products to providing services, the development history of Baisaifei, a national-level specialized and new 'little giant' enterprise, is a story of striving to expand from a single point product to a full industrial chain. It is also a story of a scientist who crosses boundaries and strives hard.

When Chen Hong discovered that domestic medical device companies were eager for domestic coatings, this professor with academic reputation decided to use his talents and 'research for application' to change the situation of medical device coatings being highly dependent on imports and promote the development of domestic medical devices to high-end.

The goal of entrepreneurship is to survive and grow in market competition, while the goal of coaching is mainly to cultivate talents and conduct scientific research. After taking the first step to cross the border, how will the road go? How does the 'most powerful brain' in academia become a winner in the industry?

Dare to think but also dare to do.

Dare to face up to your own shortcomings, make up for your shortcomings and move forward. Chen Hong is well aware of the inherent shortcomings of professors in starting a business: they do not understand the laws of the market and cannot do business; they have a halo above their heads and cannot let go of their figure; they have a way out, and the way out is often a stumbling block to hard work... She said frankly, 'It is useless to be academically powerful. You must be able to solve customers' problems.' On the one hand, she adjusted her mentality and quickly made up for business classes. On the other hand, she 'respected the expertise of others' and formed a team with market-oriented operation capabilities to coordinate operations and complement each other's advantages.

Dare to change thinking inertia and establish market-oriented thinking. Doing scientific research may be based on personal interests, while running a business must aim at industrial needs. Baisaifei's product development is always driven by demand. It was found that the coating process was the bottleneck affecting coating quality, and we immediately focused on the process, acquiring companies and developing equipment. The problems encountered by customers are the direction of research and development. The number of models of coating products means how many problems are solved.

Dare to break out of corporate limitations and contribute to the industrial ecology. In addition to becoming bigger and stronger, what other contributions can companies make to the industry? If there is a lack of standards, we should give full play to the superimposed advantages of strong R&D capabilities and familiar industrial conditions to actively promote the preparation of standards. Actively share cutting-edge developments with medical device companies, help tap demand, guide device innovation, and assist in new product registration applications. After all, all links in the industry chain share weal and woe, and coating innovation and device innovation complement each other.

There are many paths for the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements. Chen Hong, who believes that 'there is no ceiling in life', chose perhaps the most difficult path - entrepreneurship - to establish an innovation chain of 'basic research - technological breakthrough - industrial application'.

The combination of scientific research and business creates powerful forces. The story of Chen Hong and Bai Saifei is a personal narrative of the transformation of a scientist into an entrepreneur. It is an industrial slice of China's medical device innovation and development. It is also a microcosm of the era of deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation. The road to entrepreneurship and innovation is bound to be uneven, and only those who love to work hard will win!

[Character Profile]

Chen Hong, a native of Wuhan, Hubei, is a professor and doctoral supervisor in the Department of Materials and Chemistry of Soochow University, and the founder and chairman of Jiangsu Baisaifei Biotechnology Co., Ltd.

In 2011, he received funding from the National Outstanding Youth Fund. In 2014, he became a fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. In 2020, he became an honorary lifetime fellow of the International Federation of Biomaterials Science and Engineering Societies. In 2023, he became the first fellow of the Chinese Biomaterials Society. He has presided over more than ten national-level scientific research projects, achieved a series of innovative results in the field of biomaterial surface interface research, and published more than 200 papers in domestic and foreign academic journals. Build the established enterprise into a technical service platform for the entire medical coating industry chain, promote the localization of medical device coatings, and then promote the high-end development of domestic medical devices.