Introducing the "AI + Robot" approach, "Huanqiu Medical" is committed to establishing a standardized process for balloon production | Early-stage project

Text｜Hu Xiangyun

Editor｜Hai Ruojing

In recent years, with the continuous increase of the domestic cardiovascular disease population, the market demand for cardiovascular interventional medical treatment, especially interventional devices, is also rising. Among them, as one of the important consumables in interventional surgeries, the market penetration rate of balloons is also increasing. According to data from Frost & Sullivan, it is predicted that the number of percutaneous coronary intervention surgeries in China alone is expected to reach approximately 3.438 million by 2030.

However, the production of balloons "still faces many challenges". In a recent interview, Wen Renji, the CEO of Huanqiu Medical, told 36Kr: "Currently, the manufacturing of balloons still relies on a large amount of manual operations, and there is still room for optimization in terms of production consistency, manufacturing cost, and production efficiency."

Wen Renji has accumulated more than ten years of work experience in the automotive and robotics industries at SAIC Group and ABB. After starting his own business in 2016, he focused on robot integration services. In 2020, during the research process, Wen Renji learned that coronary artery surgeries have extremely high performance requirements for balloon products, and there is still some room for improvement in the balloon production process. In response to these problems, he hopes to "draw on the intelligent manufacturing experience of the automotive industry and introduce AI and robotics technology into the manufacturing of medical devices to improve the consistency of production quality and reduce the risks in the manufacturing process."

The balloon manufacturing process roughly covers more than ten key links, including pre-stretching before balloon forming, forming, testing, assembly welding, etc. Currently, Huanqiu Medical mainly focuses on the two links of balloon stretching and testing, and has developed two core hardware products: the balloon forming machine and the balloon AI detector.

First, let's take a look at the balloon forming machine. This equipment is mainly designed for high-quality polymer balloons and integrates multiple control systems including temperature control, tension, air pressure, and cooling. It can stably produce high-quality balloons of various specifications and sizes. At the same time, the equipment supports flexible process configuration and is equipped with a data query system that can record the forming data of each balloon. Therefore, while meeting the user's customizable control and monitoring conditions for each step, it realizes the monitoring of the single balloon production process and the traceability of historical data.

From an intuitive perspective, this means an improvement in production efficiency, personnel efficiency, and product yield. Wen Renji particularly mentioned that the unique water jacket structure of this equipment can "improve the control accuracy of the stretching temperature of polymer materials to ±3°C, compared to the industry average of ±10°C, enhancing the production stability and the product yield of balloons".

Schematic of the Balloon Forming Machine (Source: Huanqiu Medical)

And the balloon AI detector realizes efficient balloon quality detection through deep learning and visual AI technology, combined with ultra-high-resolution images and various optical measurements. This equipment can reduce false detections and missed detections, and improve the efficiency of quality control.

Schematic of the Balloon AI Detector (Source: Huanqiu Medical)

It is also reported that Huanqiu Medical is also conducting research and development of related software products, with the core function of assisting production personnel to adjust balloon forming parameters more quickly and improve overall efficiency.

It is worth mentioning that in recent years, the centralized procurement policy for high-value consumables in medical devices has provided an important opportunity for the market promotion of AI intelligent manufacturing. As a key centralized procurement category, since Jiangsu Province led the initiation of the vascular interventional balloon alliance centralized procurement in 2019, balloon products have undergone at least 10 rounds of volume-based procurement, and the price reduction of some products has reached 90%, and even more than 96% in the highest case.

"Under the impetus of the centralized procurement policy, we can clearly feel that the industry holds a positive attitude towards new technologies that can bring economic benefits." Wen Renji said that some customers even hope that "AI technology can not only be applied to the manufacturing link, but also further empower R & D and quality management to improve the intelligent level of the entire enterprise operation system".

It is learned that in terms of commercialization, Huanqiu Medical plans to launch the market promotion of two core balloon manufacturing hardware products in 2025. The company will adopt a combination of drainage through online new media platforms and offline participation in exhibitions and industry forums to expand its market influence. "This year, our goal is to cover the leading medical device enterprises at home and abroad and achieve a revenue of tens of millions of yuan." Wen Renji revealed.