In recent years, with the continuous advancement of technology, the application of artificial intelligence (AI) in the medical field is showing unlimited potential. In an age where population issues are prominent, the combination of artificial intelligence and medical treatment may become a “good medicine” to alleviate the shortage of medical resources in our country.

With the development of large model technology, the application of AI+ medical care first improves the efficiency of the entire medical process through text generation and auxiliary queries. In the future, it is also expected to be integrated into core business systems such as auxiliary diagnosis and treatment decisions, and will become an important force in China's medical system.

ChatGC, the first domestic “genetic counseling” big language model, was successfully released

On December 25, the Yangtze River Delta Genetic Counseling Artificial Intelligence Model Seminar and the first domestic “genetic counseling” big language model ChatGC were successfully released in Suzhou Biomedical Industrial Park. Academician He Lin from Shanghai Jiao Tong University attended and delivered the opening speech. He stressed that with the completion of the Human Genome Project, genetics has become the focus of global attention. The healthy fertility and longevity that humans seek are inseparable from the important aspect of genetic counseling, and the genetic consulting industry in China has always had the pain points and problems of “messy testing” and “disorderly consultation.” Academician He Lin figuratively called the big language model of genetic counseling “the stone of the soul,” indicating that ChatGC has strong language understanding and generation capabilities, can accurately and efficiently serve clinical trials, promote the vigorous development of hospital departments and discipline construction, and solve existing pain points in the industry. Finally, he hopes that through the Yangtze River Delta Genetic Counseling and Diagnosis Network, many participants can truly grasp new theories, learn new technologies, and make greater contributions to promoting the development of genetic counseling and genetic testing services in China and improving the health and welfare of the population.

ChatGC is a genetic counseling dialogue system based on the Transformer architecture. It combines massive medical knowledge and genetic counseling scenario question and answer data, and applies training strategies such as general knowledge pre-training, pre-training in specialized fields, fine command tuning, and artificial feedback to reinforce learning to ensure that every answer is traceable. ChatGC supports multiple functions such as intelligent dialogue, genetic expert search, genetic knowledge search, and genetic literature search.

The wave of medical digitalization: AI is leading the new trend in the market

Currently, “AI+ healthcare” is on the cusp of the market.

Looking at the world, the “2023-2027 Blue Book on the Economic Development of the Global Digital Healthcare Industry” shows that the size of the global digital healthcare market will be US$221 billion in 2022, and will increase to US$809.2 billion at a compound annual growth rate of 18.6% from 2023 to 2030. There is no doubt that the digital transformation of global healthcare has become a major trend.

From a policy perspective, under the strategic purpose of “healthy China,” Chinese healthcare is undergoing a transformation from providing “medical insurance” to providing “health services” through intelligent, informatization, and customization, and top-level design also continues to support the development of the industry.

In March 2023, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued “Opinions on Further Improving the Medical and Health Service System”. Opinions are proposed to develop “Internet+Healthcare” and accelerate the application of the Internet, blockchain, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, cloud computing, big data, etc. in the medical and health care field.

On July 24, six departments including the National Health and Health Commission and the Development and Reform Commission jointly issued the “Key Tasks for Deepening the Reform of the Medical and Health System in the Second Half of 2023", which states “launch a three-year campaign to exchange and share information among medical and health institutions across the country, promote the construction and hierarchical evaluation of smart hospitals, and promote “5G+ healthcare”, medical artificial intelligence, and “blockchain+health” pilot projects. Carry out themed activities to improve the experience of seeking medical treatment and enhance the patient experience.”

Accelerate intelligent application and deeply empower clinical diagnosis

And when it comes to actual application, ChatGC has taken the lead in speeding up. As a country with a large population, China has problems with an inadequate genetic counseling system and a large gap in the number of professional genetic counselors. At a time when clinical genetic counseling is scarce in China, the release of the ChatGC big language model comes at an opportune time and will play a good supporting and complementary role in the development of genetic counseling in China.

On March 6, 2021, Suzhou Beikang Medical Co., Ltd. (“Beikang Medical”; stock code: 02170.HK) signed a scientific and technological achievement transformation agreement with Academician He Lin's team from Suzhou BioX Life Intelligence Industry Research Institute (“BioX Industrial Research Institute”). BioX Industrial Research Institute is China's first artificial intelligence research and industrial transformation platform focusing on life science and clinical genetics. The cooperation between the two sides will accelerate the deepening of clinical application of intelligent medical products, inspire and solve problems related to clinical genetic counseling, and help clinicians carry out efficient, accurate, and economical genetic disease screening.

As the first big language model based on genetic counseling in China, the release of ChatGC will help clinical medical institutions complete in-depth exploration of genetic disease data, intelligent clinical decision-making and auxiliary diagnosis, deeply empower clinical trials with intelligent applications, and advance China's genetic consulting business in a more standardized, efficient, and accurate direction. At the same time, as a model of innovative integration of “artificial intelligence+genetic consulting”, the ChatGC big language model represents an important direction for the future development of the smart medical industry. As it gradually improves and settles, it is expected to spawn the emergence of more new business formats and models, and promote the upgrading and transformation of the medical industry empowered by the digital economy.