Non-contact plasma technology resolves the problem of high recurrence of inflammatory skin disorders, and we are seeking seed round financing.

A non-contact plasma inflammatory skin therapy device, which is positioned as "purely physical anti-inflammation, solving inflammatory skin problems without medication", has drawn widespread attention in the medical and healthcare sector. This innovative product, launched by Sichuan Shizhong Zhipeng Network Technology Co., Ltd., targets the unmet needs of more than 70 million atopic dermatitis patients in China, providing a brand-new solution for the treatment track of inflammatory skin diseases that have long relied on hormone and inhibitor drugs. In the past five years of domestic production process, counterfeit products have made progress of varying degrees one after another: there are reports of equipment using plasma radiofrequency flow obtaining venture capital, and reports of contact plasma technology obtaining Class III medical device registration. However, none of these can solve the problem that ozone generated during plasma application causes harm to the skin. Our technology can solve inflammatory skin problems without bringing extra burden to the human body, thus opening up a brand-new path.

I. Project Pain Points

With the intensification of industrialization and urbanization of human society, a growing number of people are suffering from various allergic reactions. The incidence rate of eczema remains at a high level, especially infantile eczema, among which atopic dermatitis is the most common. According to statistics, the incidence rate of atopic dermatitis in one-year-old children exceeds 30%. However, for common eczema, traditional solutions can only suppress inflammation through hormone and inhibitor drugs. In recent years, biological agents have been developed, but all these drugs intervene in the inflammatory reaction through the active pharmaceutical ingredients, weaken or even block the inflammatory reaction to achieve the purpose of clinical cure. Nevertheless, the inflammatory reaction is originally one of the human body's own defense responses. Weakening or even blocking the inflammatory reaction will definitely cause additional impacts on the body. In addition, the active pharmaceutical ingredients of these drugs will eventually be metabolized by the human body. After the active ingredients are metabolized, the inflammatory reaction will recover. Even after long-term suppression, the inflammatory reaction will reach the purpose of feedback regulation in a more intense form, thus creating a vicious circle where the inflammatory skin problem gets better immediately after medication but recurs as soon as the drug is stopped. Moreover, many cases of common eczema will eventually evolve into atopic dermatitis.

II. Solution

So how to solve this fundamental problem? A paper published in *Nature* in 2015 pointed out that plasma has the effects of anti-inflammation, sterilization and repair promotion. Meanwhile, we found that a foreign product has confirmed that low-temperature plasma has the functions of anti-inflammation, sterilization and repair promotion, which can play a fundamental role in eliminating inflammation. Therefore, after introducing this foreign product, we improved it to make it more suitable for inflammatory skin care, and applied it to the care of atopic dermatitis. Based on the real usage data of hundreds of patients with inflammatory skin diseases, we draw a conclusion: for simple inflammatory skin problems, using low-temperature plasma for inflammation care can control the inflammation level, and at the same time, the ·NO in low-temperature plasma can also activate cell regeneration and promote tissue repair, so as to improve the self-healing ability of the skin. Based on this principle, using plasma to care for inflammatory skin problems can not only quickly relieve the pruritus caused by inflammatory skin problems, but also avoid using various hormones, inhibitors and other drugs, thus eliminating the side effects of drugs, especially the problem of drug dependence.

III. Target Users

The plasma skin therapy device described in this project is mainly targeted at customers with inflammatory skin problems, and also has the effects of anti-oxidation, free radical scavenging, and care product introduction. According to its functions and price, it can currently be positioned as an essential small high-end household health care appliance.

IV. Business Model

After the product is launched on the market, the business can be divided into two major parts. On the one hand, the product is directly promoted to end consumers as a small household appliance, but this approach faces relatively large resistance in promotion and advertising, since therapeutic efficacy publicity is not allowed. On the other hand, after completing the medical device registration, the product can easily enter medical and health institutions at all levels, which in turn drives the promotion of the home appliance brand. Due to factors such as patent protection and new product popularization, the product will be in an absolute monopoly state within two to three years after its launch, and we can simultaneously launch leasing and rent-to-own purchase modes.

The core competitiveness of this project mainly lies in the protection of intellectual property rights. As the project initiator has long been engaged in intellectual property business and has a deep understanding of intellectual property protection, our company has applied for a number of invention patents from the aspects of efficacy and structure based on the plasma action principle, and made full use of the publication and disclosure procedure in the patent examination process at the beginning of patent application. When the product scale expands to a certain extent within a certain period, the brand popularity of the product rises, and user viscosity increases accordingly, which virtually raises the industry access threshold.

In the actual operation of this project, we have adopted a variety of schemes to eliminate users' worries: first, the seven-day no-reason full refund commitment allows customers to buy with ease; second, the super-long one-month return period allows customers to use the product with peace of mind; third, the rent-to-own mode allows customers to experience the product at low cost. Through various schemes, the project makes customers willing to use, able to use and rest assured to use the product, so that they can keep using it after seeing the effect. At the same time, through different preferential schemes, we encourage users to share actively, and build a reliable, effective and well-reputed image for users.

When the number of user base reaches a certain level, we can also build a cloud platform. By integrating the nursing status of consumers in different time periods and the skin improvement status after nursing, we will gradually establish a cloud database for different skin diseases, so that consumers can compare their own skin status at any time and find potential skin problems in time, making consumers use the product with full transparency.

V. Team Background

Song Yongyan, Deputy Technical Director of this project, holds a doctorate from West China Hospital of Sichuan University, is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and a master's supervisor. He currently serves as the Director of the Central Laboratory of the Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu University, Deputy Director of the Lipid and Lipoprotein Special Committee of the Chinese Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, expert of the Basic Discipline Group of the International Medical Education Branch of the China Education Association for International Exchange. He used to serve as the Vice Dean of the School of Basic Medicine of North Sichuan Medical College, Director of the Basic Medical Innovation Platform, Person in Charge of the Key Medical Discipline of Sichuan Province, and Director of the Key Laboratory of Nanchong City. His research direction is the pathogenesis of metabolic diseases. As the first principal researcher, he has participated in 2 National Natural Science Foundation projects. As the project leader, he has undertaken 2 provincial and ministerial projects and 6 departmental and bureau-level projects. He has published more than 50 papers as the first author or corresponding author, including more than 30 papers indexed by SCI, and won the Third Prize of Sichuan Medical Science and Technology Award. He presided over the establishment of the provincial-level innovation and entrepreneurship education demonstration course "Innovative Thinking and Medical Technology".

Liu Xu, Deputy Administrative Director of this project, entered the Suzhou Cultivated Land Quality Protection Station right after graduating with a master's degree. Through more than ten years of hard work and a serious and responsible attitude, he was successfully promoted to the position of Deputy Station Master. Later, he founded Suzhou Sujinfudi Environmental Technology Co., Ltd., and established a number of affiliated companies based on market feedback, deeply engaged in business fields such as soil remediation and land quality monitoring and testing. He has successfully operated a number of companies, all of which have received very good market feedback. At the same time, he has undertaken a number of soil remediation projects, land quality monitoring and land quality testing projects in many regions, and smoothly promoted the industry-university-research cooperation process of soil remediation with many professors from Sichuan Agricultural University.

Mr. Zhang Zaihe, the person in charge of this project, has worked in different positions in various work units and has rich management experience. After graduation, he joined Chengdu Tianyou Biotechnology Co., Ltd. to engage in tissue culture and breeding of mulberry, and successfully developed standard tissue culture procedures for a variety of mulberry varieties. Later, he joined Chengdu Shidai First Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. to engage in drug quality management. Then he established Suzhou Zhengho Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd. to engage in intellectual property related consulting services such as science and technology projects. He also founded Suzhou Hezhengho New Material Technology Co., Ltd. to engage in the R&D and industrialization of bottle-to-bottle recycling technology, and together with another shareholder of the company, obtained a number of patents for the pre-washing step of bottle-to-bottle recycling technology in the same year. He is good at team management and coordination.

VI. Current Progress

This project is currently in the investigation stage before the medical device registration is completed. In the early stage, we have completed the preparatory work such as market research, prototype R&D and classification definition. At the same time, we have carried out functional analysis and principle analysis of foreign products, as well as the industrialization and initial market promotion of similar products. At present, nearly 20 million yuan has been invested, nearly 30 people have been recruited in total, and after more than four years of work, we have completed function verification, product selection, pilot test and mid-test, initial market promotion, and resource integration of upstream suppliers. After the project is implemented, we can quickly mass-produce plasma inflammatory skin care devices suitable for ordinary families. At present, through the classification definition of medical devices, it is temporarily identified as a Class III medical device. Subsequently, products of different specifications and models will be launched according to the final use. Without obtaining the medical device registration, since the product does not belong to any category in the medical device classification catalogue, it can be sold normally as electronic equipment.

VII. Competitor Comparison

How urgent is the solution to atopic dermatitis? We can get a side understanding through some data. Dupixent (dupilumab) is a biological agent targeting atopic dermatitis, which was approved for marketing in France in March 2017. In November 2018, Dupixent made its debut at the first China International Import Expo. In June 2020, it was approved in China for the treatment of moderate to severe atopic dermatitis in adults, which took only half a year, two years ahead of the original plan for accelerated approval. It even realized the delivery of drugs only 25 days after approval, setting a new record for the speed of imported drugs being launched in China. Moreover, it was included in the medical insurance list only 5 months after its launch, which greatly improved the drug accessibility for atopic dermatitis patients. As the specific drug that only targeted atopic dermatitis at that time, such rapid approval, launch and inclusion in medical insurance fully demonstrates the prevalence of atopic dermatitis and the strong demand for specific drugs. However, even a powerful biological agent like Dupixent cannot completely cure atopic dermatitis, and requires lifelong medication.

VIII. Technical Advantages

Through non-contact mode, this project avoids the non-negligible ozone problem existing in current contact plasma products, and uses its own core technology to absorb the released low-temperature plasma back to the human body, so as to achieve the purpose of targeted solving deep skin lesions. A number of patents related to plasma equipment have been applied for, and in the subsequent project promotion process, it is expected that two more core invention patents and a number of referable product standards will be generated, thus building an all-round technical barrier covering product standards and core independent intellectual property rights.

IX. Market Prospect

Meanwhile, in the promotion process, we further found that plasma has excellent effect on other simple inflammatory skin problems besides atopic dermatitis, and also has excellent performance in post-operative repair. Other effects such as improving sleep and neutralizing free radicals have been fed back by different numbers of users. Such excellent performance has further strengthened our determination to improve the product for domestic production and complete the medical device registration.

X. Financing Information

The project has invested about 20 million yuan, and the total estimated investment is about 50 million yuan. The early funds are mainly used for market research, prototype R&D, etc. At present, similar electronic equipment has been developed and launched on the market. Meanwhile, in the early operation of the project, a number of patent authorizations have been obtained according to the results of market research, and part of the payment has been recovered through the market launch of similar equipment. In the next stage, an estimated additional 18-23 million yuan will be invested for plant construction, advertising, medical device registration, etc. At present, the self-raised working capital is about 3 million yuan, with a funding gap of 15-20 million yuan. We are actively connecting with investment institutions, and the exit will be realized through buyback or listing in the later stage.