Waterdrop Inc. (NYSE: WDH) has announced a major breakthrough through its Yifan Medicine division, a professional clinical research recruitment service provider. The division recently completed a global multicenter Phase III clinical trial recruitment project for an antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) targeting extensive-stage small cell lung cancer (ES-SCLC), achieving a remarkable surge in enrollment efficiency within just two months and setting a new monthly enrollment record since the project's launch. This achievement successfully tackles the long-standing industry pain point of patient recruitment in small cell lung cancer clinical studies.
The collaborative project aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of the targeted ADC drug compared to standard second-line therapy in patients with extensive-stage small cell lung cancer who have progressed after first-line treatment, seeking novel therapeutic options for patients with advanced refractory lung cancer. Facing the core challenges of a tight recruitment timeline, difficult patient screening, and an extremely narrow treatment window, Yifan Medicine implemented a systematic, refined, and data-driven full-chain recruitment service. Within just 60 days, the project achieved comprehensive breakthroughs across four key dimensions: enrollment speed, patient reserve, service response, and regional coverage.
According to Yifan Medicine's platform recruitment statistics, the project's enrollment efficiency hit a new monthly high in June, doubling the total enrollment of the previous five months combined, with a screening success rate reaching 55%. Additionally, the project added an average of 17.5 reserve patients per month, a 56% improvement over the first-half monthly average.
Innovative multi-pronged strategies redefine clinical recruitment service standards
Small cell lung cancer (SCLC) is recognized as the most rapidly progressing and aggressive form of lung cancer, presenting extreme challenges for clinical treatment. Data from the CSCO Small Cell Lung Cancer Diagnosis and Treatment Guidelines 2025 indicate that approximately two-thirds of patients are already at the extensive stage upon diagnosis, with the five-year survival rate remaining in single digits over the long term—far below that of non-small cell lung cancer. Currently, first-line platinum-based chemotherapy combined with immunotherapy is the mainstream treatment approach, but after disease progression, second-line standard treatment options are limited with relatively low efficacy, leaving a large number of advanced patients in urgent need of innovative therapies.
After taking on the task of accelerating enrollment for this project, Yifan Medicine precisely targeted the industry's pain points, abandoning the traditional passive "waiting for patients at the clinic" model of clinical research. Instead, it built a full-chain recruitment system featuring "proactive outreach, science education, precise pre-screening, and data-driven review," leveraging refined operational strategies to solve the SCLC recruitment challenge and achieving dual improvements in quality and efficiency within just 60 days.
In terms of patient outreach, Yifan Medicine restructured its recruitment pathways by leveraging its national medical resource network, mapping the catchment areas of each research center, and establishing multi-dimensional out-of-hospital recruitment touchpoints to precisely reach potential patient groups dispersed across various levels of hospitals. According to Yifan Medicine's recruitment statistics, among the 96 reserve patients accumulated for the project, 79% came from channels independently developed outside the research centers, giving a large number of advanced patients who previously had no access to in-hospital research resources a new opportunity for treatment.
On the patient communication front, the Yifan Medicine team focused on the core concerns of advanced patients and their families, providing professional science-based Q&A in plain language around key issues such as drug safety, treatment efficacy, and rights related to clinical trials. Through proactive science education, the team helps patients build a clear understanding of clinical research, alleviates medical concerns, ensures fully informed and voluntary enrollment, and strengthens the compliance foundation of clinical studies.
Monthly enrollment doubles as Yifan Medicine empowers clinical practice and benefits patients
The enrollment window for SCLC patients is measured in weeks, and no opportunity can be wasted. Yifan Medicine project specialists conduct medical-record-level preliminary assessments for each reserve patient. For instance, among the 96 reserve patients, those temporarily ineligible—due to mismatched disease staging, lack of platinum-based treatment history, or having exceeded line of therapy—are screened out and given thorough explanations during the out-of-hospital phase. This approach prevents unnecessary trips for patients and reserves the valuable screening resources of research centers for those truly likely to enroll, achieving a screening success rate of 55%.
Meanwhile, Yifan Medicine addresses patients' most pressing concerns—"safety," "efficacy," and "clinical trial-related examinations and medications"—through accessible science communication, ensuring patients have a foundational understanding before entering the center. Platform recruitment statistics show that in June, enrollment was twice the total of the previous five months, setting a new monthly record since the project's inception. Additionally, the project added 35 new reserve patients, averaging 17.5 per month, a 56% improvement over the first-half average.
Furthermore, Yifan Medicine has continuously expanded the project's coverage, with reserve patients sourced from more than 20 core research centers nationwide, spanning provincial cancer hospitals and top-tier general hospitals across North China, East China, Central China, South China, and Southwest China, achieving a large-scale, nationwide recruitment layout. Service response efficiency has improved significantly, with the fastest cycle from patient reserve registration to successful randomized enrollment taking just 9 days, buying precious treatment time for advanced patients with extremely short windows.
Efficient and precise patient recruitment is a critical link in accelerating the translation of innovative therapies into clinical practice and benefiting patients. A Yifan Medicine representative stated that the core value of clinical recruitment extends far beyond advancing project timelines—it is about securing new hope for survival for every advanced patient stuck at a treatment bottleneck.
Yifan Medicine is a digital clinical patient recruitment platform under Waterdrop Inc., leveraging the company's vast patient base and digital AI capabilities to conduct patient recruitment and related business. It focuses on solving the industry pain points of "slow recruitment" and "difficult matching" in clinical trials, while helping renowned pharmaceutical companies at home and abroad improve R&D efficiency. As of March 2026, Yifan Medicine has established partnerships with 243 well-known pharmaceutical companies and CROs globally, cumulatively completing 1,718 clinical trial projects and enrolling 15,512 patients. Among these, Yi Recruitment, operated by Yifan Medicine, provides patients with clinical trial project information, preliminary screening, project matching, and research center connection support.
Looking ahead, Yifan Medicine will continue to deepen its clinical research recruitment services, continuously optimize its full-chain service system, and leverage professional, refined, and data-driven service capabilities to help advance more innovative drug clinical studies efficiently, accelerate the delivery of superior innovative therapies to clinical practice, and enable more patients with difficult tumors to have access to treatment and new hope.