Healthcare universally lags behind other fields in innovation. Information and communication technologies in mHealth and virtual medicine are already changing the daily reality of the average citizen of the People's Republic of China. The range of needs that social networks are capable of meeting is expanding fast, and WeChat and QQ are only the beginning. The market is catching on - in the first half of 2016, the volume of private investment in digital care has already exceeded $1,4B. Healthy ageing and life extension technologies, coupled with the hope for the state support in advancing these fields continue to attract a lot of attention from businesses and investors.
mHealth is an expression of the global societal focus on care delivery, both medically and economically, and in the People's Republic of China this field could incorporate the most disruptive technologies, challenging the existing models. There is no shortage of space to facilitate the growth - In 2016 the volume of the national market of medical services is ¥7B and is expected to exceed ¥10B in 2017 with 74.5% CAGR.
Previous family regulation policy was terminated in 2016, thus opening the gates for importing reproductive technologies and services in the area of the personal body-and-image design. The world is watching as the People's Republic of China is implementing systems of social rating. Would healthcare be an integral, constructive, innovative part of the project? Most other aspects of the system are already serviced via the Internet. Over 700 million citizens of the People's Republic of China already have access to Internet and 86% of them get on-line via their mobile phones.
The combination of the government support, the growing share of the middle class and advanced technologies present a new horizon of opportunities. Retrospectively, EY analytics agency's reports mark the growth of the private insurance market in the country from ¥1,5T in 2014 to ¥2.4T in 2015. In 2020, the market is expected to reach ¥5T. Mobile health app market in the last five years has also grown considerably, attracting investors.
Mobile technologies in biomedicine, including those in active development at "Skolkovo" Innovation Center are expected to expand the gamut of Russia-China cooperation in cross-boarder care delivery for the population of both countries.