Since year of 2016, the ten-year national strategic plan “Made in China 2025” has highlighted the medical device industry as one of the key sectors in the world’s second largest economy. The plan is aimed at promoting R&D investment, motivating technology innovations and achieving significant breakthroughs, especially in the field of high-performance devices such as medical robots, 3D printing devices, imaging equipment, and high-value consumables, etc.
China has the world’s greatest potential and rapidly-growing medical device market. In 2004, the national market only accounted to a little bit over $2 billion. Ten years passed, and it grew to close to $40 billion in 2014 with a skyrocketing speed. Furthermore, by the end of 2016, the Made in China 2025 plan has leveraged the market to about $46 billion in scale and will continue facilitate the industry to develop towards an independent manufacturing power.
“Made in China 2025 strategy” and other strategic plans are supporting the localization of medical devices, which taking both the clinical needs and innovative needs into account. The development of China’s medical device industry in the future will have the following trends:
The Five Trends
- China will become a global medical device manufacturing center;
- The market will maintain high-speed growth of more than 20%;
- The process that “substitutes for imported goods” with domestic device will speed up and the concentration ratio of the industry will be promoted;
- The industry will step into standardization gradually;
- The big data platform and intelligent equipment will promote the rapid development of device service industry, and create new growth points.
Medical device and equipment manufacturing, processing of prepared traditional Chinese medicine pieces, sanitary materials and pharmaceutical products manufacturing were the fastest growing ones in pharmaceutical industry sub-sectors in 2016.
The Five Hot Areas
- The use of domestic devices in primary medical care is increased. With the development of hierarchical diagnosis, the allocation of medical resources are concentrated to the primary level, the advantages of domestic medical device manufacturers are highlighted. The localization of medical device and import substitution have been an irresistible trend, and domestic high-end device will become a hot area of investment, for example, high-end CT equipment, color Doppler ultrasound and medical rehabilitation devices.
- The government are supporting the third-party services of medical device. In the future, with the increasing of patients’ requirements to the medical examination, the credibility requirements between doctors and patients, independent medical image center, third-party inspection and other social services institutions will come into being, and the current national policies are also providing support and extending the limitation.
- The demand for innovative medical devices is increasing. Since 2009, the number of coronary artery intervention PCI operation cases in China has been steadily increasing. By 2015, the total number of coronary artery intervention operations in mainland China was up to 567,600 cases, and the average implanted stent per coronary heart disease patient was about 1.5. The fourth-generation degradable stents are made entirely from degradable materials and they are expected to replace the drug-eluting stents gradually.
- The development of POCT (Point-of-care Testing) is speeding up. POCT products have been widely used in hospitals, ICU, emergency, clinics and patients’ home. They can test the vast majority of routine clinical indicators. The global POCT market size in 2012 was about 10 billion US dollars. A compound annual growth rate of 8% had been maintained. China has a large population. The market is still in the early stages of development. Penetration rate in hospitals and other terminal is very low, so the potential of POCT will be very great
- The application of orthopedic implants is increasing. The growth rate of orthopedic implants will remain at around 20% in the future. The global orthopedic implants market size in 2016 was up to 47.261 billion US dollars. It is expected to be 74.796 billion US dollars in 2023.
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