More and more competition in the analysis of China's medical device market

Business News Agency August 16th According to forecasts by authoritative departments, the demand for medical devices in China will continue to rise in the next five years. The annual market size of medical equipment in China can reach 1.2 billion to 1.5 billion yuan. Experts predict that by 2005, the market capacity of medical devices in China will reach 50 billion yuan to 55 billion yuan. However, according to the "Guangzhou Daily" report, the "gray shade" of the medical device industry has penetrated into the three major operating links of production, circulation and use. Production process: procurement inferior materials shoddy. Circulation: High quotes and high rebates have soared. Use the link: Spin-off foreign equipment to sell to earn the difference. What attitude should Chinese medical companies take over this market? In the macro market demand, product circulation, technical support, capital integration, and after-sales service should be a truly thorough investigation and summary. But can our company truly grasp this market? To think about this market should be self-analysis from depth.

In the circulation of the market

After China's accession to the WTO, China's medical device industry developed at an extraordinary rate of 15%, but there is a huge gap between domestic medical device brands and the world's medical device brands. The gap in China's medical device brands is also reflected in the industry scale and concept of ideas. In addition, the widespread imitation of large areas in the industry in China has also led to the vicious fight of domestic medical device companies, further causing the slow development of the medical device industry. The situation of inventors and domestic companies in domestic domestic medical device companies is also quite prominent. Often, there are many products on the market, and there are not many quality products. Moreover, the upgrading of such enterprise products is relatively slow, and the scale of the enterprises is also relatively small and short-lived examples are not uncommon. .

And look at the tender, some famous professors and departments of large hospitals, to carry out some projects, and because these devices are relatively few manufacturers, even if the tender procurement, in fact, by several monopolies. In particular, the agents included the rebate part into the price cost, and covered the illegal kickback part with a legitimate winning bid price. As long as the relationship with the hospital is good, the hospital will issue a procurement report and budget to the health bureau and other departments. After the approval, the hospital will allocate funds for "bidding and procurement."

The drawbacks of the market are mainly reflected in the lack of transparency. Its various market behaviors are a vague concept. To get a good grasp of the domestic and foreign trading markets, China's medical device market needs to be standardized and clear. To achieve national medical care under an equal competition? M step development.

Technically

Domestic medical equipment companies are not large-scale, and generally 30 to 50 people are called medium-sized companies. Such companies are not comfortable with research and development, and new products are often not protected. And foreign large medical device manufacturers have concentrated talents, advanced technology and abundant capital. For example, Siemens Medical Devices has 24,000 employees, 23 production bases in 10 countries, more than 7,500 kinds of equipment, and 2,000 scientific and technical personnel and large amounts of money are invested in the research and development of new products every year. The few listed companies in China are listed. The sum of the company's strength is also hard to expect.

Although the current domestic self-development power has increased from a few years ago, it has encountered many difficulties. It is difficult to design a new product platform by relying solely on the development model of domestic power alone. In the face of China’s rapidly growing huge local market, if China’s medical device companies do not develop products with independent intellectual property rights, do not improve their independent innovation capabilities, and rely too much on foreign technologies, it may lead to long-term consolidation of local industries in the international division of labor in low-tech, Low value-added links. In the process of economic globalization, the answers to questions such as “how to achieve independent development” and “necessity for independent development” in China's medical device industry have become more and more clear.

In addition to the strength gap, domestic companies still have the disadvantages of disconnecting scientific research from production. Because the medical device industry involves cutting-edge technologies in many disciplines such as production technology, electromechanics, physics, optics, and computers, its development depends on the development of basic industries such as machinery, electronics, chemicals, and new industries such as biomaterials, sensors, and computers. Weakness can cause product imperfections. Medical devices are used for medical services. However, medical device developers in China are not in close contact with clinicians. New products cannot fully meet clinical needs.

In the developed countries, medical devices are mainly innovative and improved in hospitals. Large-scale hospitals have dedicated engineers responsible for listening to clinicians and developing practical instruments for doctors. For example, the United States St. Jude Company hired a large number of clinicians as consultants, made requests, provided information, and set up clinical research centers in Belgium, Sweden and other countries to address actual needs and ensure continuous innovation.

In contrast, the drawbacks of the Chinese medical device market's production line are precisely what many businesses have wanted to get rid of over the years, but how do they change? There are still many problems in medical reform for many years. How can we achieve self-improvement in the product market while completing the flow of water?

In the capital of the financial

Domestic and foreign manufacturers take every medical equipment exhibition as an opportunity for a commercial exchange. The world's largest medical device manufacturers, they have all entered China, and they are constantly adjusting. Similar to foreign medical device companies, larger domestic companies have also started to make a fuss about industrialization and scale, and have accumulated considerable capital to prepare for diversified industries. Some companies have set their sights on overseas and have made products into the headquarters of foreign companies. How to integrate resources as soon as possible and clarify development ideas is a major issue for major domestic medical device companies.

On the other hand, from another perspective, there are many factors that have hindered its integration. In particular, an important bottleneck that scientific research cannot be translated into productivity is still financial constraints. The investment that is generally used for the transformation from scientific research to large-scale production is 10 times that of scientific research. However, the Ministry of Science and Technology has spent less than 10 million yuan on scientific and technological development of national biomedical engineering for five years, and the National Natural Science Fund has invested less in this area. . The involvement of venture capital, the participation of large groups is easier said than done.

Capital is the new force for product technology promotion. How to use capital will be the key to how to grasp the market and win.

After-sales service

It will be a blank in the country. And look at this news: Who will bear the medical image equipment after-sales service. Traditionally, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) are responsible for after-sales services, such as equipment maintenance and repairs, after the equipment is sold; however, if a device is signed for a service agreement, it requires a lot of The financial support, especially the supply and demand sides, are under great pressure to reduce expenditures. Moreover, there are numerous manufacturers supplying equipment to hospitals, which brings inconvenience to hospitals for the maintenance of medical imaging equipment. Therefore, the quest for a third party to provide maintenance of imaging equipment to the hospital is increasing, which is the opinion of a foreign investigation company after market research. The survey shows that private medical institutions are more willing to request third parties to provide services. One of the changes in equipment maintenance and repair services is the absorption of value-added services such as training services, consulting services and round-the-clock services including working hours. These value-added services are none of the current after-sales services promised by manufacturers. In this way, many large companies have been lost in a huge proliferation of services. How to grasp and expand this untapped market will be the most pressing issue.

The huge market demand has made the medical device problematic in the process of entering the market. It is understood that in the mid-to-low-end medical device market where domestic companies occupy the leading market, many companies are very weak in the aspect of production quality control. Another gray area of ​​production is the production of unregistered medical device products or post-registration expansion specifications that do not perform registration, or arbitrarily expand the scope of treatment, indications. Under the new round of competitive pressure on the Chinese medical device market, its laws are bound to improve and further eliminate non-standard enterprises. The fiasco of Chinese companies in the vaccine market illustrates this point. As people pay more and more attention, more and more competition will impact China's medical device market.