Conquering the world with “Make in Vietnam” medical AI technology products

The desire to return to his homeland to research and develop high technology, solving "difficult problems" for the healthcare industry, prompted Mr. Truong Quoc Hung to establish VinBrain - a pioneering technology company developing products applying artificial intelligence (AI) for healthcare - in April 2019.

He himself had to take care of his elderly mother who had a stroke, and understands the hardships of patients and their families who have to wait at the hospital to be examined, simply because the hospital is always overloaded.

Mr. Hung has many years of experience in technology: Studying software engineering at the University of Toronto - Canada; having a Master's degree in the US; having 13 years of experience with a global technology corporation as Technical Director and AI Incubator at Microsoft USA... But in the medical field, he is completely a "newbie".

The “path” of AI in healthcare is extremely “difficult”. Because the healthcare field is extremely complex, and AI is the latest technology, combining healthcare with AI becomes a huge challenge. That “extremely difficult” can make many people hesitate, but Mr. Hung considers this as his motivation.

“No one is perfect, so we need to continuously learn to improve ourselves every day. Challenges are also opportunities to prove that we have the ability to solve challenges and difficulties. Only when we solve difficult problems can I be satisfied,” Mr. Hung said with a smile.

“If we can do it, it will expand the national spirit and enthusiasm of young people, creating a catalyst to ignite the aspiration and belief in creating “Make in Vietnam” products to confidently go out into the world. And more than that, we hope that in the future, not only exporting technology products, Vietnam will also be able to export medical technology experts,” he confided.

The biggest challenge in the early days of “entering the game” is the work of collecting data, digitizing, and cleaning medical data to train the machine. At the same time, it is necessary to create trust among doctors and hospitals when piloting and testing new technology.

“VinBrain is willing to be transparent about what it does so that doctors and hospital leaders can see how to build its systems; we regularly exchange information to understand each other and build trust with each other. After a while, hospitals, hospital directors, government agencies, and doctors all strongly support VinBrain’s “Make in Vietnam” products,” Mr. Hung shared.

From the reality of each unit having its own medical data warehouse, not ready to share, with "Make in Vietnam" solutions, VinBrain has gradually built trust by announcing that it does not collect patient identification and medical data, and uses systems with high information security tools when collecting and processing data.

With the mindset of “Standing on the shoulders of giants to go further, faster”, VinBrain’s CEO has long thought about cooperating with big players in the industry, such as Stanford University, Harvard University, University of California San Diego, University of Toronto…, units with a long history of research, gathering many leading doctors in the world; and with “technology giants” such as Microsoft, Nvidia…

The support of leading doctors and good doctors in Vietnam, the support from state agencies such as the Ministry of Information and Communications, the Ministry of Health, and the investment from VinGroup Corporation have also provided energy to help Mr. Hung and his colleagues be more persistent and determined to solve the "problem" of AI in medicine.

From the very first day of its establishment, VinBrain clearly defined its vision of “Knowledge for lives”, using Vietnamese intellectual technology to conquer the world. A talented team, big data, and large investment are the key factors to ensure the quality of technology products always meets international standards. 80% of the company’s operating budget is invested in research and development (R&D), of which nearly 70% is for human resources. VinBrain has attracted the contributions of many Vietnamese experts and engineers who have worked at leading technology corporations such as Microsoft, Amazon, Samsung, etc.

In particular, VinBrain has gathered a large dataset (Big data), formed from more than 800 thousand images collected in the US, Canada, Europe, along with about 1 million images in Vietnam at first, then quickly increased to 2.5 million images. State-of-the-art equipment such as NVIDIA's AI A100 supercomputer is put into operation to optimize data mining efficiency.

Having directly used VinBrain's AI technology application solution in healthcare, Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Van Giang, Director of Diagnostic Imaging and Interventional Radiology, Vinmec Healthcare System affirmed: “VinBrain's solution helps doctors a lot, shortens time and increases the efficiency of imaging diagnosis. I think artificial intelligence technology will help medicine a lot. It is currently in the initial stages of development, from now until completion, it will go through many different stages. We really want to have more useful technologies like this in the future.”

With many advantages, the first time the Ministry of Information and Communications organized the "Make in Vietnam" Digital Technology Product Award - 2020, VinBrain's DrAid™ image diagnosis support solution was awarded Second Prize in the Outstanding Digital Solution Category.

According to the assessment of the Standing Committee of the Make in Vietnam Digital Technology Product Award Council: “DrAid™ is an important foundation for continuing to develop digital technology products to support disease treatment and prevention. The product was born to contribute to accelerating the digital transformation process in the healthcare sector; in line with the policy and orientation on digital transformation in economic sectors and fields in Vietnam, contributing to the development of the digital economy by mastering, developing and applying “Make in Vietnam” digital technology products. At the same time, the product also has the potential to exploit the global market”.

There are many medical technology companies applying AI in the world, but each unit will have its own main product line to make a difference. Compared to many foreign competitors, VinBrain's "trump cards" such as DrAid™ Chest X-ray, DrAid™ Liver Cancer CT... possess superiority in many aspects. For example, DrAid™ Liver Cancer CT can segment and classify liver cancer lesions on CT images with 4 types of tumors: Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), Other malignancies HCC, Benign, and Tumors of unknown nature. The liver segmentation results achieved a Dice coefficient of 96.55%; lesion segmentation had a Dice coefficient of 74.47%, and tumor classification had an F1 coefficient of 90.12%.

“We know who our competitors are, and we constantly compare and evaluate them. For example, compared to a competitor in Korea who has been ahead of us for 6 years, in terms of the DrAid product, we have many different and superior features, and in terms of certifications, we are also on par with them. We are ready to “compete” with many foreign competitors when we have created a number of new features, with different values, meeting the needs of solving “problems” comprehensively, and at a reasonable price,” General Director Truong Quoc Hung confidently said.

Dare to be the pioneer, research and develop products that have never existed before, VinBrain focuses on solving important and difficult health problems in the world, such as cancer.

With the aspiration to save 830,000 lives each year, VinBrain has launched a line of cancer diagnosis and treatment products, starting with liver cancer (the disease with the leading mortality rate). DrAid™ CT Liver Cancer helps this Vietnamese enterprise become the first unit in the world to develop and launch a solution to detect early abnormal tumors in the liver through CT images, providing clinical solutions to help diagnose liver cancer early, while also having features to support liver cancer specialists in treatment.

Following DrAid™ CT Liver Cancer, the company will soon launch other product lines for early detection and treatment of cancer such as: DrAid™ MRI Rectal Cancer, DrAid™ CT Lung Cancer.

“The quality of VinBrain products is guaranteed by prestigious international certificates and awards,” Mr. Hung confidently said.

A typical example is the 2021 ACM SIGAI Industry Award for DrAid for Radiology (a physician assistant in diagnostic imaging) with the title of "Best AI Application Product". Interestingly, this award from the world's largest computer association has only named 3 units in the past 4 years, besides VinBrain, the remaining two units are "big guys" in the technology industry (Microsoft, Sony).

Notably, on September 2, 2022, on the occasion of Vietnam's National Day, VinBrain's DrAid X-ray product was also recognized by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as meeting safety standards and quality. Previously, only 5 countries including the US, Israel, India, South Korea and Australia had businesses making AI products for X-ray diagnosis that achieved this certification. Currently, VinBrain is still the only unit in Southeast Asia to receive FDA certification for AI products supporting medical diagnosis.

Passing the FDA’s strict criteria was a long road. VinBrain spent more than a year and a half collecting data labeled by practicing American doctors with clear qualifications. The FDA certification is a worthy reward for the Vietnamese company’s perseverance.

However, prestigious awards are not the final destination of VinBrain's CEO and associates. Creativity and updating the application of advanced technology in the new world are continuous activities at VinBrain.

Last year, on November 22, ChatGPT was launched to the public. On November 23, VinBrain began researching, developing and integrating Generative AI/ChatGPT into the DrAid™ Enterprise Data product, an “All-In-One” solution including DrAid AI for imaging diagnosis and Generative AI (generative artificial intelligence) for hospital data management and medical management, which can automatically extract medical reports into 25 different languages ​​to support doctors, has a chat platform for Q&A, analysis and provides intelligent, predictive summaries, helping hospital leaders make data-based decisions, ensuring high accuracy.

In response to the question: “Do you think you are too bold when choosing the United States as the first stop on your journey to “Go Global” (to the global market – PV)?”, Mr. Hung said: “Choosing the most difficult market like the United States to test first is because if American customers are willing to pay for you, it means you have proven your strength. Currently, there are about 20 hospitals in 8 states in the US using VinBrain products.”

Some “secrets” to conquering the US market were revealed by VinBrain’s CEO: First, you must have a strategic vision, do “problems” that other companies have not done or have not done well, build products that create different values ​​and have internationally certified quality. For example, to enter the US market, you must have “passports” such as FDA certification.

Next, there must be trusted partners. When Stanford University (USA) was willing to share with VinBrain a dataset of 230 thousand medical images and reports, many people would think that a startup company in Vietnam must have some value for a university ranked Top 1, Top 2 in the world to be willing to do so.

In addition, it is necessary to absolutely ensure data security, and the contract must be clear and transparent.

After initial successes in the US market, VinBrain has recently boldly entered the Indian market - currently the most populous market in the world, with two recently signed trade agreements.

“Our orientation is to develop widely in large and nearby markets; build a team of local staff to understand the market better. Besides India, in the coming time, VinBrain will develop operations in a number of other Asian countries such as Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia... VinBrain's initial revenue mainly came from the Vietnamese market, but after about 3 years, revenue from the international market has become the main source of income, and we will gradually realize our wish to develop successfully, bringing profits from abroad to support the Vietnamese healthcare industry", Mr. Hung shared more.

“If the diagnosis is accurate and the screening is correct, many people can be saved. Early detection of incurable diseases will prolong the patient’s survival. For example, liver cancer, if detected early, can be treated. Or lung cancer, if detected too late, sometimes only a few months after detection, the patient will not survive,” Mr. Hung said in a low voice.

Taking the heart and desire to save people as the "guiding principle" in the journey to solve medical challenges with AI technology, VinBrain has just decided to join hands with the World Health Organization (WHO) to solve the "problem of the century" - preventing tuberculosis.

In fact, tuberculosis is a disease that only exists in underdeveloped countries and screening for this disease in the community has been funded by WHO for many years. After this socially impactful program was implemented by VinBrain with international anti-tuberculosis associations, using mobile chest X-rays and the DrAid™ platform, the cost of screening was reduced from 50-60 USD using GeneXpert to 1 USD.

This is also an extremely meaningful activity for the community in the context that every year in Vietnam, 12,000 - 15,000 people die from tuberculosis, hundreds of thousands of people are infected with tuberculosis, most of whom are from economically disadvantaged groups.

“People with TB are prone to unemployment because everyone is afraid of getting infected and does not dare to hire them. In fact, preventing TB is also fighting poverty. I really hope that through cooperation with the National Tuberculosis Control Program and international organizations such as WHO, Global Fund (Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria) ..., VinBrain will be a catalyst to completely solve the "problem" of fighting TB, so that Vietnam will no longer have TB and become a civilized country", Mr. Hung expressed his heartfelt words.

Article: Dawn

Photo: Le Anh Dung

Design: Vu Minh Hoa

Vietnamnet.vn