Beijing's First Smart Ophthalmic Medical-Industrial Park: A Tsinghua-Linked Company's Breakthrough

“The core competitiveness of high-end medical equipment must be built upon the accumulation and innovation of fundamental technologies.”

On a warm spring afternoon, inside the Zhongguancun (Changping) Smart Ophthalmic Medical-Industrial Park, the R&D lab of Tuo Mai Medical (Tupait Medical) was buzzing with activity. Engineers were debugging the latest intraoperative swept-source OCT (Optical Coherence Tomography) navigation microscope, with a vivid 3D image of fine ocular structures dancing on the screen.

These devices — each priced at 5.8 million RMB and achieving nearly 100 million RMB in single-quarter bid wins — are now heading to global markets from this very hub.

In January 2025, Tuo Mai Medical moved its group headquarters into the Changping International Medical Device City (East Zone). Born from a Tsinghua University technology transfer, this high-end ophthalmic equipment company's journey of technological breakthroughs and global expansion has become a microcosm of the park's thriving industrial ecosystem.

Technological Breakthrough Ends Long-Standing Monopoly

For decades, German giants such as Zeiss, Leica, and Heidelberg have dominated the high-end ophthalmic medical equipment arena.

Take ophthalmic surgical microscopes: Zeiss launched the world's first commercial operating microscope, OPMI 1, in 1953, and has since held over 70% of the global market. Domestic alternatives were virtually non-existent. Founded in 2017 as a Tsinghua spin-off, Tuo Mai Medical set its sights precisely on this “bottleneck” sector.

“The core competitiveness of high-end medical equipment must be built upon the accumulation and innovation of fundamental technologies,” said Wang Yingqi, co-founder and general manager of Tuo Mai Medical.

After years of intensive R&D, the company officially launched its “Bo Yun” (Clearing Clouds) and “Fu Xue” (Whispering Snow) ophthalmic surgical microscopes in 2025. Featuring world-first innovations like “intraoperative 3D swept-source OCT navigation,” the products achieved sales and installation at top-tier institutions such as Beijing Tongren Hospital and Shanghai ENT Hospital within just one quarter. The flagship model “Bo Yun,” priced at 5.8 million RMB per unit, set a record for the highest price of any domestically produced ophthalmic device, proving that homegrown innovation can shatter foreign dominance.

Furthermore, Tuo Mai's “Bei Ming” and “Yao Guang” swept-source OCT systems, released in 2020, boast a scanning speed of 400,000 A-scans per second, ultra-widefield angiography, and panoramic anterior-posterior segment imaging. They have been installed in over 1,000 ophthalmic institutions across China, with about 300 units deployed in overseas markets like the EU.

Behind the technological edge lies sustained, high-intensity R&D investment. Tuo Mai Medical spends nearly 100 million RMB annually on R&D, with the R&D-to-revenue ratio peaking at over 200% in the past five years. Even after surpassing 300 million RMB in revenue, the ratio remains at 30%.

The journey overseas has also been demanding. Wang Yingqi admits that the core challenges of medical device globalization lie in building distribution channels and establishing long-term trust. A premium regional distributor often has to give up representing traditional international brands to sign with Tuo Mai. This trust has been cultivated through a persistent “mutual visit” strategy.

Over the past three years alone, Tuo Mai has organized 15 multi-country agent visits and training sessions. On one occasion, agents from nine EU countries formed a delegation of dozens to conduct in-depth inspections of Tuo Mai's Beijing headquarters and its business centers in Shanghai and Suzhou. This painstaking channel-building approach, while time-consuming, lays a solid foundation for sustainable growth.

After obtaining CE-MDR certification in 2024, Tuo Mai Medical officially entered the overseas market. In 2025, its annual overseas sales surpassed $10 million, with 70% coming from European countries, and achieved average selling prices higher than local European brands.

Cluster Effect and the “Invisible” Support

Tuo Mai Medical's rapid ascent owes much to the nurturing ecosystem of the International Medical Device City (East Zone). Changping is home to many innovative companies like Tuo Mai, not an isolated case.

As a key park within the Changping Life Sciences Innovation Corridor, the International Medical Device City (East Zone) sits adjacent to the Jingzang and Jingxin Expressways. It is strategically positioned to accommodate technology transfer projects from Zhongguancun Life Science Park, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and other high-tech industrialization projects. With a total floor area of approximately 430,000 square meters, the park focuses on high-end medical devices and precision medicine, forming a complete industrial chain from R&D and pilot production to mass manufacturing.

Currently, more than forty enterprises have settled in the park, covering various sub-sectors of medical devices. Industrial clusters are emerging in high-end imaging equipment, implantable/interventional devices, in-vitro diagnostics, and AI-powered medical innovations.

This clustering effect brings tangible benefits to Tuo Mai Medical. “Access to upstream and downstream resources is dense. From precision manufacturing to CRO/CDMO services, everything is readily available within or near the park, significantly lowering resource acquisition costs,” Wang Yingqi noted.

The Changping district government also provides robust support. Leveraging the Innovation Beijing Service Station of the NMPA Medical Device Technical Evaluation Center, the park offers “one-company-one-policy” pre-evaluation services to accelerate approval processes. As Beijing's first Zhongguancun specialty industrial park focused on smart ophthalmic devices, it also benefits from special measures jointly issued by eight municipal departments, including the Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission. AI+ healthcare demonstration projects can receive up to 50 million RMB in subsidies.

After moving in, Tuo Mai Medical established the “International Smart Medical-Engineering Innovation Center” in collaboration with the International Medical Device City and the Zhongguancun (Changping) Smart Ophthalmic Medical-Industrial Park. The center focuses on early-stage technology transfer projects from universities and hospitals. With the park's high-quality resources, it unveiled four innovations within a year, including ophthalmic surgical robots and AI diagnostic systems, helping more projects leap from 0 to 1 and from 1 to 100.

Capital support has been equally critical. Changping has built a funding system including venture capital funds and an integrated “equity-debt-loan-insurance” mechanism to back technology commercialization. Tuo Mai Medical has completed nine financing rounds since its inception, with Chang Development Group following on consecutively from the second round. “Even during the relatively sluggish capital market period from 2022 to 2024, we continued to secure financing. This is closely tied to the concentration of capital in this region,” said Wang Yingqi.

From laboratory to industrialization, from domestic market to global footprint, the growth trajectory of Tuo Mai Medical reflects a facet of Beijing's medical device industry upgrading. What the Changping International Medical Device City (East Zone) is doing is building a more complete industrial ecosystem, so that more “Tuo Mai-style” innovation stories can continue to unfold here. (Company Observation, By Cao Zhai)