The extensive connectivity brought about by the 4th industrial revolution has increased the importance of personal data, for many reasons such as risk analysis, market requirement predictions and to determine the preferences and inclinations of the customers in many sectors.

Digital pharma services emerged approximately in the last ten years, however the Covid-19 outbreak has accelerated its adoption by the patients and healthcare providers immensely.

While the market demand for the telehealth/telemedicine solutions is growing, the number of companies providing services in this area also increases. USA, China and EU are highly populated big markets and any service provider that wishes to pursue these markets needs to be aware of the policies in these markets. Digital pharma products and services rely heavily on personal data either in the form of social security information, address etc. or more specifically the health data and the processing thereof.

One of the most promising digital pharma companies is Ping An, which at the moment operates in Asia, specifically in China.

Ping An Good Doctor (PAGD) is a product of Ping An group that operates as a digital health service provider and considering the way it operates it is evident that PAGD makes use of personal and health data to provide services. Based on all of this information the main question I wanted to tackle with this thesis is, whether or not there are any legal barriers before PAGD that prevents its entry into the European and USA markets.

The thesis also contains a simple comparison between Ping An and its close competitor Philips Healthcare and a short analysis on how Ping An can have a unique selling proposition by making use of its patent portfolio directed to data protection.

This research project is conducted by MIPLM graduate Merve Şimşek and supervised by Prof. Dr. Alexander Wurzer and Dr. Thibaud Lelong both CEIPI.

Merve Şimşek studied chemistry at Bogazici University in Istanbul, Turkey, where she also obtained her MSc degree in chemistry. In 2022, she completed the Master of Intellectual Property Law and Management (MIPLM) at CEIPI Université Strasbourg, France. She tutored EQE candidates within the framework of the Candidate Support Project (CSP) of EPO. She works as a freelance European and Turkish patent attorney.

Here is a description of the research project: