Cai said that in 2010, Saint Lucia had only two patients. In 2012, there were about 100. Now, the company has around 1,000 patients each year, over 70 percent of whom suffer from critical illness such as cancer. The remaining 30 percent want to go abroad to receive technically difficult surgical procedures such as brain and bypass surgeries.
The costs for medical care overseas ranges from $20,000 to $2 million, depending on the treatment plan.
A cancer patient should expect to pay around 1 million yuan ($150,000) for diagnosis and treatment abroad.
The company charges a fee from 28,000 yuan to 138,000 yuan for its services including medical translation, reservation and referral and visa applications.
Fresh start
Li's cancer was caused by the EGFR19 gene mutation. "In China, this was basically incurable. But the U.S. had already approved drugs for this specific type of lung cancer," Li told China Newsweek. He decided to try his luck in the U.S.
In November 2014, Li took his first dose of afatinib, a targeted treatment for EGFR-mutation-positive lung cancer which had already been introduced to the US market but hadn't been cleared for sale in China.
Five weeks after he started taking the pills, tests showed that the number of cancer cells on his spinal and collar bones had reduced significantly. The area that the cancer first began, in his lung, had seen a 60 percent reduction in cancer cells.
But his quest in the West for a cure didn't stop here. In less than a year, doctors found that Li had developed a resistance to the drug.
Li then took on a path that very few Chinese have taken: He signed up for a clinical trial for a new type of targeted therapy called AZD9291, a third-generation medication for mutations that are resistant to second-generation drugs like afatinib. His resistance to second-generation drugs means he fit the requirements for joining the trial.
Li joined the trial group and signed relevant agreements.
0Two weeks later, Li found breathing had become much easier for him, and his bones no longer ached. The drug had proved effective.
Although more Chinese are going abroad for treatment, very few choose to sign up for clinical trials.
Chong said only those who have life-threatening illness resort to drug trials, as this is their last hope.
"I won't encourage it because there is no way to guarantee that the new drugs undergoing clinical tests are effective," he said.
Li was lucky. Three months into the trial, AZD9291 was approved by the FDA. This meant the drug is officially considered trustworthy, and his life span could be prolonged further.
But this also means Li could no longer get free medication - he now had to pay for it. Previously, all testers could take the drug for free. The medication costs about $10,000 a month.
Sick system
Experts say China's drug industry is lagging far behind that in the developed countries. While the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has over 9,300 employees, the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) has only 345 registered employees.
The lack of personnel and China's painfully bureaucratic review procedures means it can take a much longer time for drugs to be approved.
Although Chinese regulations say the review period for new drugs' clinical trials should not exceed 90 days, CFDA data shows that the review period for new medicines often actually takes 14 to 28 months.
According to the 2015 annual CFDA report, China reviewed 9,691 new drugs in 2015, leaving over 17,000 drugs still unreviewed on their books.
This has prevented many potentially-lifesaving medicines and vaccines from entering the Chinese market. For example, the Chinese mainland approved the country's first human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine this July, almost a decade after the first HPV inoculation was developed.
Over the past decade, many Chinese have had to travel to Hong Kong to take the vaccine.
Chong said due to China's ongoing medical reform, the procedures through which the country introduces new drugs have slowed down in the past years and the reviews have become even tougher.
Cai said this is also why two-thirds of Chinese patients' treatment plans are changed after they are diagnosed by doctors in the U.S.
"Take lung cancer for example. China is still using drugs developed in 2011. In the US, there are many more choices," he said.
Talking about market prospects, Cai said overseas medical care remains a niche market in China, the growth of which is stable. He estimates that less than 3,000 Chinese patients went abroad for treatment for their critical illness in 2015.
