To address the significant public health challenge of low early diagnosis rates and high mortality associated with pancreatic cancer, Meinian Onehealth Healthcare Holdings Co.,Ltd. and Shanghai Changhai Hospital formally signed a scientific research cooperation agreement on the morning of March 1, 2026. This partnership initiates a research project under the "National Science and Technology Major Project for Four Major Chronic Diseases." The collaboration aims to deeply integrate top-tier medical research outcomes with a large-scale health screening network, accelerating the nationwide adoption of a "China Solution" for early pancreatic cancer screening and establishing a robust professional defense for public pancreatic health.
At the signing ceremony, Professor Jin Gang, Director of the Hepatobiliary and Pancreatic Surgery Department at Shanghai Changhai Hospital, and Jiang Ying, Senior Vice President of Meinian Group, signed the agreement as representatives. The event was witnessed by Yang Pengfei, Vice President of Shanghai Changhai Hospital, Pan Chen, Deputy Director of the Medical Affairs Department, Yu Rong, Chairman of Meinian Health Group, and Xu Tao, President of the group. This initiative marks a critical step in collaborative innovation involving industry, academia, research, and medicine within the field of cancer prevention and control. It is also a significant practice in implementing the "Health China 2030" strategy, which emphasizes moving interventions earlier and focusing resources at the primary care level.
The collaboration directly tackles the core difficulties in preventing and treating the "King of Cancers," having achieved breakthrough results in early screening technology. Pancreatic cancer is known as the "king of cancers" and is one of the most lethal malignant tumors. During his keynote speech titled "The 'China Solution' for Early Pancreatic Cancer Screening and Diagnosis," Professor Jin Gang highlighted that the overall five-year survival rate for pancreatic cancer in China is only 8.5%. Furthermore, 85% of patients are diagnosed when the tumor is already in an unresectable stage, making surgery impossible and resulting in a corresponding five-year survival rate of less than 5%. The lack of low-cost, high-efficiency early screening and diagnosis technologies is the central bottleneck in pancreatic cancer prevention and control efforts.
Early detection, early diagnosis, and early treatment are internationally recognized methods for cancer prevention. The surgical resection rate for early-stage pancreatic cancer is 90% to 100%, with a five-year survival rate potentially reaching 50% to 70%. Early screening of high-risk populations is a crucial prerequisite for achieving this goal. A over-20-year screening study targeting individuals with hereditary high risk in the United States has fully demonstrated the core value of early screening: the detection rate for Stage I tumors in the screened group reached 57.9%, with a median survival of 9.8 years, significantly higher than the 14.3% detection rate and 1.5-year median survival in the non-screened group. This clearly shows the significant role of early screening in improving survival rates for pancreatic cancer patients. Physical examination centers serve as the first line of defense in cancer prevention. By "moving interventions earlier and focusing resources at the primary care level," it is possible to curb cancer at its source and enhance patient survival rates.
Professor Jin Gang also introduced that the "National Science and Technology Major Project for Four Major Chronic Diseases," led by Shanghai Changhai Hospital, brings together medical institutions, research institutes, and enterprises to collaboratively tackle key challenges. The project has established an early diagnosis technology system integrating multi-omics data and has developed an early warning system for pancreatic lesions by incorporating artificial intelligence algorithms. The goal is to improve the sensitivity and specificity of early pancreatic cancer diagnosis, enabling earlier detection and precise diagnosis.
The partnership represents a deep integration of industry, academia, research, and medicine, aiming to create a closed-loop process for early screening and diagnosis. Physical examination centers are the first line of defense in cancer prevention. Meinian Health, as a leading enterprise in preventive medicine in China, possesses accumulated medical-grade health check-up data from nearly 300 million人次, a nationwide network of nearly 600 offline service centers, and a mature portfolio of AI products. This collaboration enables the deep connection of cutting-edge medical research成果 with primary health screening networks, effectively bringing pancreatic cancer early screening technology to the frontline of public health prevention.
Regarding the cooperation's implementation plan, Professor Jin Gang emphasized that both parties will strictly adhere to the assessment indicators and expected outcomes of the National Science and Technology Major Project. They will leverage Meinian Health's national examination network to conduct large-scale opportunistic screening. Additionally, the pancreatic cancer early screening AI imaging system, the high-risk population assessment system, and green referral channels will be fully integrated into Meinian Health's national examination centers. This will form a standardized system for early pancreatic cancer screening and diagnosis that is suitable for China's conditions and can be promoted nationwide.
Yu Rong, Chairman of Meinian Health Group, stated that as a leading enterprise in national health screening, Meinian Health consistently focuses on the technological implementation and service普及 of early cancer screening and diagnosis, having already developed a product matrix covering the entire health management process. It was learned that in May 2025, Meinian Health signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Alibaba DAMO Academy in Shanghai. The two parties will jointly explore screening for various critical diseases, including cancer and chronic illnesses, utilizing the "multi-disease detection in a single scan" medical AI technology developed by DAMO Academy. This technology is scheduled for official deployment this year across Meinian Health's branches nationwide, enabling opportunistic pancreatic cancer screening based on non-contrast CT scans, significantly improving the efficiency and comprehensiveness of early lesion detection. The deep collaboration with Shanghai Changhai Hospital represents a major step by Meinian Health in participating in the National Science and Technology Major Project. The company will follow the core technologies and standardized procedures for pancreatic cancer early screening established by Professor Jin Gang's team, leveraging its national examination network to build a public service system for pancreatic cancer screening, providing professional and precise pancreatic health screening services to examinees. Simultaneously, Meinian Health will make every effort to establish green referral channels with designated top-tier hospitals like Shanghai Changhai Hospital, ensuring that patients with early-detected pancreatic lesions promptly receive MDT consultations and personalized precision treatment, truly realizing the goal of "early detection, early diagnosis, and early treatment" in cancer prevention.
This signing ceremony marks a crucial step towards the nationwide普及 of the "China Solution" for early pancreatic cancer screening and diagnosis. It also sets an exemplary model for collaboration between medical research institutions and primary health service providers. In the future, both parties will fully leverage their respective advantages in medical research, technological development, application scenarios, and end-user service networks. They will deepen collaborative innovation involving industry, academia, research, and medicine, promote the clinical application of pancreatic cancer early screening technologies, and conduct health科普 activities. By continuously accumulating localized screening data and optimizing the early warning system, they aim to comprehensively enhance the national early diagnosis rate for pancreatic cancer, ultimately reducing pancreatic cancer mortality from the source. This effort will contribute significantly to achieving the goal outlined in the "Healthy China 2030" blueprint of increasing the overall five-year cancer survival rate by 15 percentage points, allowing more citizens to benefit from precise and accessible pancreatic health protection services.
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