Wellgen Medical Co., LTD

We developed an auto-scanner and AI recognition software for detection of tuberculosis and cancers by patient smears to eliminate manual exam by physicians which are labor intensive and inaccurate

Founded in 2016 in Taiwan. Institutional investors include Foxlink Image, SinaPac Ventures, Taiwan Nat’l Development Fund. Individual investors include professors, medical doctors, employees, industry expert (eg. formal Taiwan Novartis GM, etc..). Current cap is 2.5m. Noticeable traction includes:
2017.06 – Taipei InnoVex SME Award
2017.09 – Beijing Bank Cup Startups Pitch (China) 1st Place
2017.09 – Sold the first system to a medical center in Kaohsiung, TAIWAN
2017.12 – Hsinchu Science Park Company of the Year
2018.02 – Nat. Chiao-Tung Univ IAPS Company of the Year
2018.09 – 17th Ministry of Economics Best Startup Award
2018.09 – Product received Japan FDA certification.
2019.08 – 4th Beijing-Taipei Startups Pitch (China) 1st Place
2020.02 – Selected into TACC+ Propel accelerator

There is a huge market in medicine that is still labor intensive - microscopy exam in infectious diseases (eg. tuberculosis) and pathology (eg. cancer). Current practice still rely on human eyes on microscopy and exam the slide field by field which has low sensitivity and high inter-observers variations. In addition, the differences in microscopes would also affect the recognition results. Regardless many AI companies in the world, Wellgen Medical sees the opportunity and develop hardware and software together to solve the problem in one system. Wellgen's 8-slide tray makes the system compact and cost effective, priced at 1/5 to 1/10 of the other scanners.

Wellgen Medical developed its own proprietary microscopy auto-scanner that can capture images from slide for diseases (eg. tuberculosis) or cancers detection by AI software. Although there were high through-out microscope scanners (eg. Philips and Leica), they are too big and too expensive to 90% of the hospitals in the world which has low volume of specimens. UCLA medical center (in CA, USA) has 22 medical facilities spread around the are and none of the facility can afford a big system. We believe digital pathology is the future, and Wellgen Medical will make digital pathology affordable to every hospital and clinicians.

Wellgen Medical is complementing the big players (Philips and Leica), not against them. When the big players target on the big medical centers, Wellgen sell to its surrounding small hospitals. Thru Wellgen's internal PC and cloud, the scanned images can be transmitted safely and efficiently inside hospital's own network. Wellgen Medical can also work with CRO in cancer drug research by providing digital images of patient's specimens in real time during the multi-country, multi-center clinical trials.

After getting the USFDA Class II 510(k), Wellgen Medical will be the only 3 companies that hold the medical device certification in that category (in addition to Philips and Leica). This will create a huge advantage to Wellgen especially in CRO market. An FDA certified device will save the CRO and Big Pharma a lot of time in clinical trial.

First, Wellgen Medical is complementing the big players (Philips and Leica), not against them. When the big players target on the big medical centers, Wellgen sell to its surrounding small hospitals. Thru Wellgen's internal PC and cloud, the scanned images can be transmitted safely and efficiently inside hospital's own network. Second, Wellgen Medical can also work with CRO in cancer drug research by providing digital images of patient's specimens in real time during the multi-country, multi-center clinical trials. Third, Wellgen Medical can work with other AI companies in developing their own recognition with a standardized hardware (eg. Wellgen). This will accelerate their own FDA certification process.

1. USFDA 510(k) registration: US$200k
2. Major software revision (from Windows based to Linux): US$100k
3. 36mo of operation and R&D expense: US$1.5m

Company has current pre-money of 10m USD. We are raising 1.8m and giving out 15% of shares.

Attended the following incubation programs funded by Taiwan government.
TTA, G Camp by SME, TACC+ , DAKUO office, IAPS

2017.06 – Taipei InnoVex SME Award
2017.09 – Beijing Bank Cup Startups Pitch (China) 1st Place
2017.12 – Hsinchu Science Park Company of the Year
2018.02 – Nat. Chiao-Tung Univ IAPS Company of the Year
2018.09 – 17th Ministry of Economics Best Startup Award
2019.08 – 4th Beijing-Taipei Startups Pitch (China) 1st Place
2020.02 – Selected into TACC+ Propel accelerator (won USD8,000)

Total 7 patents (3 registered in China and 4 registered in Taiwan).