April 26, 2026. Shanghai – artificial intelligence is accelerating and establishing a presence in the centre of the healthcare industry. From drug discovery and R&D to hospital management, clinical assistance, patient services, and health management, AI is rapidly reshaping the industry chain and value creation methods. Driven by technological evolution, market demand, and industrial upgrading, the question of how to leverage AI at all stages of development, from concept to implementation and from single-point testing to large-scale application, has become an important topic of common concern in the industry.
On April 26, the 4th CEIBS MBA Annual Healthcare Forum was held in the Petrochemical Auditorium at the Shanghai campus of China Europe International Business School (CEIBS). Themed "AI Empowering the Healthcare Industry: Opportunities, Applications, and Challenges," this year's forum featured in-depth exchanges on the practical realities and challenges of AI in pharmaceutical innovation, clinical validation, enterprise digital transformation, medical technology progress, internet health services, and innovative drug R&D. The forum brought together hundreds of attendees, including representatives of leading enterprises in the healthcare industry, hospital managers, guests from investment institutions and professional service agencies, as well as CEIBS MBA students and alumni. Together, they engaged in profound discussions on how AI can drive pharmaceutical R&D, medical services, device innovation, and industrial synergy, not only responding to the industry's questions on cutting-edge trends but providing a platform for communication and cross-boundary dialogue among alumni, students, and industry professionals.

4th CEIBS MBA Annual Healthcare Forum

Beginning the forum, CEIBS President Wang Hong delivered a welcome address. She stated that the mission of medicine is not merely to extend the length of life, but to enhance the quality of life. AI is helping us improve our quality of life in unprecedented ways, she said, compressing the drug development cycle from a decade to just a few years, bringing high-quality medical care from top-tier hospitals in major cities to remote grassroots areas, and shifting health management from post-event treatment to proactive prevention;  a profound transformation for human dignity and equality, which healthcare entrepreneurs and managers are standing at the forefront of. 
She pointed out that CEIBS has a dedicated research centre focused on the healthcare industry—the CEIBS Healthcare Sector Research Centre, within which CEIBS faculty continually conduct cutting-edge research and cultivate a large number of leaders in the healthcare field who possess both business acumen and a sense of social responsibility. They are rooted, she added, in the frontline of the industry, driving technology translation, model innovation, and ecosystem building. Among the employment destinations of CEIBS MBA students, the healthcare industry has ranked in the top three for many years. Amid future technological transformations and industrial practices, she concluded, CEIBS will strive to align academic research with industrial practice, create social value using business insights, and continuously supply ideas and talent to contribute wisdom and fortitude to the development of the healthcare industry and the enhancement of human well-being.

President of CEIBS, Professor of Management, and Hengdian Group Chair in Management Wang Hong

Frank Bournois, Co-President (European) at CEIBS, delivered the opening remarks. Speaking from an international perspective, he highlighted the mounting pressures confronting healthcare systems worldwide, driven by aging populations, the growing burden of chronic diseases, and rising costs. At the same time, artificial intelligence is advancing at an extraordinary pace, reshaping multiple dimensions of the healthcare value chain—from drug discovery and diagnostics to hospital operations and patient management. We moved from AI that was a suspect yesterday to an assistant today and already now AI has become a collaborator.
However, he emphasized that in healthcare, the true measure of technological innovation and meaningful progress lies in whether technology can create trustworthy, measurable, and meaningful real-world value for patients, healthcare professionals, institutions, and society as a whole.
As one of the world’s leading international business schools, CEIBS is committed to building bridges—between China and the world, academia and industry, as well as ideas and impact. He stressed that future leaders must not only understand innovation itself, but also know how to scale it responsibly, manage it effectively, and apply it in ways that generate sustainable long-term value.

CEIBS Co-President (European) Frank Bournois

During the subsequent keynote speech and guest sharing session, Song Ruilin (EMBA 2002), Chief Expert of the China Pharmaceutical Innovation and Research Development Association (PhIRDA) and CEIBS alumnus, delivered a keynote speech titled "A Brief Discussion on the Trends of China's Pharmaceutical Innovation Development under the New Situation." He noted that 2026 represents an important turning point for China's pharmaceutical innovation landscape. From a policy perspective, biomedicine has been positioned alongside integrated circuits and the low-altitude economy as an "emerging pillar industry," meaning biomedicine should no longer just provide medical security but become a contributor to economic development. He expressed his belief that China has formed a "G2" relationship with the United States in terms of life science institutions, clinical trial volume, and R&D pipelines, adding that last year, the total Business Development (BD) value of the healthcare industry was roughly $140 billion, exceeding the annual export value of Chinese electric vehicles.

He also stated, however, that this R&D advantage has not yet translated into an industrial advantage—domestic innovative pharmaceutical companies often receive upfront payments of only tens of millions of dollars, which can change hands for billions a year later, exposing a lack of commercialisation capabilities in the latter half of the process. He asserted that the solution lies in reconstructing the payment system: shifting from "Three-Medical Linkage" (medical treatment, medical insurance, and medicine) to a four-part synergy of medical care, medical insurance, commercial insurance, and medicine, establishing a more diversified payment system to better translate R&D advantages into industrial advantages. He also emphasised that improving the domestic market environment and expanding market space is an inevitable development path for China's pharmaceutical innovation under current geopolitical circumstances.

Chief Expert of PhIRDA and CEIBS alumnus Song Ruilin (EMBA 2002)

Dr. Ren Feng, Co-CEO, Chief Scientific Officer, and Head of Drug R&D at Insilico Medicine, then presented a keynote titled "From Technical Breakthroughs to Clinical Validation: The Second Half of AI Drug Discovery." He stated that if the first half of AI drug discovery was a technological race centred around algorithms, then the second half, with 2026 as a watershed, will return to outcome implementation centred on clinical validation. Facing the three major bottlenecks of traditional drug R&D—"high costs, low success rates, and long cycles"—AI can improve the efficiency of target discovery, molecular generation, and optimisation in the early preclinical stages, he said, adding that whether these preclinical capabilities can truly translate into value ultimately depends on clinical validation for verification and demonstration. 
Taking ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) as an example, Dr. Ren outlined how Insilico Medicine had utilised its target discovery platform PandaOmics to identify 28 novel targets, 18 of which have been validated in fruit fly models, showing moderate or strong correlation with neurodegenerative symptoms; from this starting point, the firm and its partners further explored and formed a drug repurposing strategy for ALS. The process took just over three years from target discovery to patient application, he said, reflecting AI's substantive value in improving R&D efficiency, reducing costs, and increasing success rates.

Co-CEO, Chief Scientific Officer, and Head of Drug R&D of Insilico Medicine, Dr. Ren Feng

Ted Lai, Chief Digital Officer of Sanofi Greater China, then shared his insights on “AI Transformation of Biopharmaceutical Companies”. He said that while AI is the most transformative technology of our lifetimes, it will not replace humans in the foreseeable future.  Instead,“those who collaborate with AI will replace those who do not.” He also noted that the transition to AI is extremely challenging, with McKinsey data indicating that approximately 75% of AI-related projects end in failure.
Drawing from his experience driving the digital/AI transformation of multinational companies across industries including pharmaceuticals, banking, and media, he believes there are five main reasons for failure: first, being mesmerised by the technology development itself and forgetting to solve real business problems; second, merely layering AI on top of existing processes without redesigning the workflows; third, kicking off too many small, fragmented pilots without a process to scale; fourth, lack of a high-quality data foundation; and fifth, lack of strong governance, leadership by example, and AI-competent talent. He emphasised the need to begin by understanding the business problems to solve including user pain points, then forming cross functional teams to redefine workflows as well as how AI agents might handle some/many tasks while humans handle others (and stay in the loop at critical junctures.) 
He also said that Sanofi had been building an “AI-ready data foundation” in China for the past few years, which has given the company a competitive edge in rapidly building AI and other data applications.  This resulted in a designation by a Mckinsey survey as a top 5% most digitally-transformed company cross-industry. 

Ted Lai, Chief Digital Officer of Sanofi Greater China

Huo Quan, Vice President of Business at United Imaging Intelligence, delivered a presentation titled “Medical AI Agents: Technological Progress and Future Prospects.”
He emphasized that AI is not intended to replace human professionals, but should be understood as a new form of advanced productive force. Drawing an analogy to how automobiles transformed carriage drivers into chauffeurs, he noted that AI will fundamentally reshape the roles of healthcare practitioners rather than eliminate them.
From an industry perspective, medical AI has evolved from early task-specific models—such as lung nodule detection—to more integrated systems capable of multi-task analysis, and is now entering a new phase characterized by autonomous, agent-based architectures powered by large-scale multimodal models.
Huo also pointed out that the Chinese medical imaging AI sector has undergone significant consolidation: from more than 200 companies in 2017 to fewer than 20 today. In his view, this reflects a critical shift from technology-driven proliferation to value-driven survival. The only enduring benchmark, he argued, is whether a solution delivers tangible clinical and operational value.
He further observed that advances in large models are compressing innovation cycles, accelerating both technological iteration and the translation of research into real-world applications. This dynamic is expected to significantly enhance the efficiency of industry-wide innovation in the near term.
Ultimately, Huo concluded that the true value of AI lies not in replacing doctors, but in enabling them to refocus on patient care—allowing technology to more effectively serve clinical practice and improve the overall quality of healthcare delivery.

Vice President of Business at United Imaging Intelligence Huo Quan

Zhang Junjie (EMBA 2023), Vice President of Ant Group, President of Ant Healthcare Business Group, and CEIBS alumnus, then delivered a presentation titled "Ant Afu: Making Medical Care Simpler and Life Healthier." The speech approached the topic from the perspective of online healthcare and patient services, reflecting the practical value of digital technology in improving the accessibility, convenience, and user experience of health services, and demonstrated Mr. Zhang’s belief that the current medical industry faces two core problems: insufficient high-quality supply, and users' low-frequency, passive health management.
The breakthrough of AI technology in 2023, he said, made his team determined to pivot from "medical payment" to "medical health," leading to the launch of the AI health steward "Afu." Afu's positioning is not to replace doctors, he said, but to become the users' "AI doctor friend and health steward," collaborating with hospitals and doctors to provide full-life-cycle services; the programme has so far reached 120 million users and  an average of over 10 million daily interactions, with users over 55 years old accounting for 25%, and 55% of users outside Tier 1 and 2 cities. He emphasised that digital technology should not only improve medical efficiency but also serve inclusive medical scenarios, balancing data security, privacy protection, and compliance governance while enhancing accessibility, convenience, and user experience. Mr. Zhang concluded by stating that AI must not only pursue development in science and technology, but also human warmth to protection of life.

Vice President of Ant Group, President of Ant Healthcare Business Group, and CEIBS alumnus Zhang Junjie (EMBA 2023)

Gong Huimin (AMP 2009, EMBA 2025), Chairman and CEO of Caijin Medicine (BioPartners X) and CEIBS alumnus, then shared his views around the theme "New Paradigm of Innovative Drug R&D." He proposed that scientists starting businesses generally face five major bottlenecks: R&D capabilities, financing capabilities, management capabilities, personal energy, and personality resilience. Although AI technology has significantly improved the efficiency of innovative drug R&D, he said, it cannot fundamentally break through these bottlenecks, adding that Caijin Medicine always takes "humanity's unmet urgent clinical needs" as its core starting point. Relying on its "Three Gatherings" core methodology, he described how the firm gathers global scientific research power, talent power, and capital power to integrate global high-quality R&D resources; relying on its core capabilities across the entire process of "Gathering, Selecting, Nurturing, and Selling," it effectively crosses the "valley of death" in innovative drug R&D. Finally, he extended an invitation to all scientists, talents, and capital to jointly explore a new R&D paradigm and promote the development of the innovative drug industry.

Chairman and CEO of Caijin Medicine and CEIBS alumnus Gong Huimin (AMP 2009, EMBA 2025)

These presentations were followed by a panel discussion themed "Challenges of Implementing AI in Healthcare," hosted by CEIBS Adjunct Professor of Management Eric Bouteiller. Discussing the key challenges facing the leveraging of AI in real medical scenarios from diverse industry perspectives, the participants were: Fred Ding (GEMBA 2025), Managing Director of AXA Global Healthcare and AXA China, and CEIBS alumnus; Kenneth Chung, General Manager of Raffles Hospital Shanghai; Zhu Qi (MBA 2003), Managing Partner of Sia Partners and CEIBS alumna; and Zhang Xiaoyu, Partner at Glinks Law Firm.

Panel Discussion

Utilising each of their unique perspectives, the participants focused on how AI technology can cross the chasm from proof of concept to scenario implementation, with a focus on practical issues such as the matching of technology and demand, business model construction, organisational synergy, industry compliance, and ecosystem cooperation during the implementation of AI in healthcare. They generally agreed that the value of AI in the medical field does not stop at technological feasibility verification; more importantly, it is about how to bridge the gap, establishing a truly sustainable synergistic mechanism among technology, organisation, business models, and compliance systems.
This forum was hosted by Ge Xianghan (Class of 2027), Financial Officer of the CEIBS Healthcare Industry Club.

Financial Officer of the CEIBS Healthcare Industry Club Ge Xianghan (Class of 2027)

The integration of AI and the healthcare industry will likely continue to deepen in the future, ushering in new opportunities for value creation. The CEIBS MBA Healthcare Industry Club will continue to gather diverse viewpoints and connect industry resources through formats like the Annual Healthcare Forum, pushing the healthcare industry to continuously move towards greater development through exchange, cooperation, and innovation.

Group Photo