WISER Optomed Powers Launch of China's First Provincial High Myopia Research Network in Guangdong

GUANGZHOU, China — June 24, 2026 — China Alliance of Research in High-Myopia (CHARM) Guangdong Provincial Sub-Center was officially inaugurated on June 23 at a launch event in Guangzhou, marking the alliance's first provincial-level expansion. The new center is spearheaded by Guangzhou First People's Hospital, with core technological partner from EVisionAI and WISER Optomed 欧视医疗 — the China joint venture between Finland-listed Optomed Plc (HEL: OPTOMED) and WISER.

The launch represents a significant milestone for WISER Optomed, which provides the portable Aurora® AI fundus camera — the only handheld fundus camera in the world to simultaneously hold FDA (U.S.), CE (EU), and NMPA (China) certifications — as the frontline screening device across the CHARM Guangdong network.

From a Camera to a Network: The Infrastructure Behind the Headline

China faces one of the world's most severe myopia epidemics. The national myopia rate among children and adolescents exceeds 51%, with Guangdong reaching 52.4%. Over 130 million people in China live with high myopia (defined as ≤ -6.00D), a condition that significantly elevates the risk of irreversible blinding diseases including retinal detachment and myopic maculopathy.

Yet traditional myopia prevention has focused overwhelmingly on refractive error — the prescription number — while largely ignoring the fundus (the back of the eye), where the earliest pathological signals actually appear.

"Conventional prevention is overly fixated on optical parameters while neglecting fundus pathology. Multi-dimensional fusion of refraction and fundus imaging is the new direction for myopia control. The ultimate goal is to protect the fundus," said Professor Jin Zibing, Vice President of Beijing Tongren Hospital and initiator of the CHARM alliance.

The Guangdong Sub-Center tackles this gap through a three-layer architecture:

Layer 1 — Access (WISER Optomed): Community optical shops, optometry centers, and primary care clinics deploy the Aurora® handheld AI fundus camera — no pupil dilation required, portable, delivering hospital-grade retinal imaging in minutes. This brings screening capability to the point closest to patients.

Layer 2 — Intelligence (EVisionAI): The EVisionAI platform converts a single fundus photograph into 300+ quantitative parameters, enabling sub-micron-level precision analysis. It transforms the diagnostic process from subjective visual assessment to objective, data-driven interpretation — and generates patient-readable reports.

Layer 3 — Clinical Pathway (Guangzhou First People's Hospital): Screened patients with abnormal findings gain access to a dedicated green-channel referral pathway to top-tier ophthalmologists. Post-treatment, patients return to their community provider for ongoing long-term management — completing a closed-loop care cycle.

The Economic Logic for Optical Retail

The launch comes at a critical juncture for China's optical retail industry. With approximately 150,000 brick-and-mortar optical stores nationwide, the sector has experienced a dramatic shift over the past two decades — from high-margin retail to thin-margin survival. Traditional stores face e-commerce cannibalization (customers try in-store, buy online), intensifying price competition, and a crisis of professional trust.

The counter-trend is equally clear: stores that have transitioned to eye health service centers are seeing average transaction values rise from approximately ¥500 (traditional eyewear) to ¥2,000–3,000, with customer lifetime values for families with established eye health records exceeding ¥8,000 and retention rates doubling.

Dr. Cui Yu, founder of Shenzhen Kangaroo Ophthalmology, noted at the launch: "For forward-looking operators, fundus examination is a necessary strategic investment. Within 3–5 years, it will become as standard as axial length measurement — it is the key to commanding service premiums and avoiding price-driven commoditization."

For participating optical centers, CHARM affiliation offers tangible benefits: official accreditation, green-channel hospital referrals, expert consultation sessions, and even co-authorship opportunities on multi-center research publications — effectively granting community providers a third-party hospital endorsement.

A 120,000-Case Dataset — And the Data-for-Data Model

CHARM's explicit Phase 1 objective in Guangdong is to construct a standardized dataset of over 120,000 high myopia fundus images. Member institutions operate under a "data-for-data" model: for every case contributed, the institution gains access to 10 cases from the alliance's pooled dataset. Top-contributing institutions ranked in the top three are eligible for co-first author and co-corresponding author status on alliance publications.

Dr. Leng Yunxia, Chief of Guangzhou First People's Hospital (Hedong Branch), who leads the Guangdong Sub-Center, emphasized the practical clinical value: "As public awareness grows, parents are no longer satisfied with simply getting a prescription. Fundus photography provides multi-dimensional explanations — refraction, axial length, fundus images — which dramatically increases client trust and retention."

WISER Perspective: Venture Development in Action

WISER co-founded Optomed China with Optomed Plc as part of its venture development practice, which helps European technology companies build, finance, and scale their China operations through joint ventures, strategic partnerships, and growth capital.

"We established Optomed China with a clear thesis: portable AI fundus screening would become a routine component of primary eye care — the equivalent of a blood test for the eye," said Kevin Chen, Director of WISER Optomed. "The CHARM Guangdong launch validates this thesis not as a device deployment story, but as an infrastructure play. We are not just placing cameras; we are co-constructing an eye health data network that connects community optometry, AI diagnostics, and tertiary hospital expertise into a single, seamless system."

The model's scalability is inherent in its architecture: what works in Guangdong — a province of over 150 million people — can replicate across China's other provinces and, ultimately, in other markets where community-based screening and specialist referral networks remain disconnected.

About the Partners

Guangzhou First People's Hospital (广州市第一人民医院) is one of South China's earliest institutions with an independent ophthalmology department, established in the 1950s by renowned ophthalmologist Dr. Shen Yi. The department brings over 70 years of clinical expertise to the CHARM Guangdong Sub-Center.

EVisionAI (依未科技) is a technology company focused on AI-powered fundus image analysis. Its "Eye Routine" platform extracts 300+ quantitative parameters from a single fundus image and currently supports data interoperability across 150+ CHARM member institutions nationwide.

WISER Optomed(欧视医疗) is the China joint venture between Optomed Plc (Finland) and WISER, headquartered in the Greater Bay Area. It provides the Aurora® handheld AI fundus camera — the world's only fundus camera with simultaneous FDA, CE, and NMPA certifications — deployed in over 6,000 hospitals and clinics globally. WISER Optomed focuses on making hospital-grade fundus screening accessible at community and retail points of care.