On January 10, at the executive meeting of the State Council, it was decided to “normalize and institutionalize the centralized procurement of medicines and high-value medical consumables in bulk to further reduce the medical burden on patients.”
The medical device industry has achieved vigorous development under the background of the epidemic, and speculation and discussion about the centralized procurement of medical devices have continued to heat up. Behind the excitement, there are not only repeated trade-offs on the profit margins of medical device prices, but also general expectations for “import substitution”. A series of medical equipment industry development plans have been issued, and relevant policies have been providing support for the import substitution of medical equipment. How do domestic medical devices change from “following” to “running side by side” and then to “leading”? The entry of Internet giants may be able to press shortcut keys for “import substitution” of medical devices.
State speech: willGradually expand the coverage of centralized procurement of high-value medical consumables
The State Council executive meeting proposed to gradually expand the coverage of centralized procurement of high-value medical consumables, and conduct centralized procurement at the national and provincial levels for orthopedic consumables, drug balloons, and dental implants that are of concern to the public. Xu Xiaoliang, vice president of the Guangdong Medical Device Industry Association and member of the expert group, said in an interview with reporters earlier that due to the relatively large amount of high-value consumables and the high unit price, centralized procurement can reduce the burden on patients to a certain extent. “Dental implant companies have higher profits, and incorporating them into centralized procurement is conducive to further compressing the middle.moisture, to promote the healthy development of the industry. “Xu Xiaoliang believes that there are many medical device manufacturers of the same type, and the obvious homogeneity will also become one of the factors for shortlisting in the scope of centralized procurement.
In October 2020, the price of coronary stents was reduced from 13,000 yuan to 700 yuan in the centralized procurement bidding. The price reduction of more than 90% caused discussions in the industry, and thus started a vigorous medical device centralized procurement “first”. gun”.
In September 2021, after coronary stents, the second high-value medical consumable artificial joints will be purchased in national quantities. According to the results of the centralized procurement, the average price of the hip joint selected in this centralized procurement will drop from 35,000 yuan to about 7,000 yuan, and the average price of the knee joint will drop from 32,000 yuan to about 5,000 yuan, an average price reduction of 82%. Lin Zihong, a former orthopedic surgeon at the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University and Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, is now the founder of United Doctors Group. Lin Zihong believes that centralized procurement can be scaled to a certain extent through volume, and manufacturers may be able to receive deeper clinical feedback. , which can reversely promote the research and development of medicinal devices, drive the development of artificial materials in China, and finally benefit more people.
The decline in the price of medical device products will cause a certain degree of squeeze on the coverage of production costs, advertising expenses and marketing expenses. Xu Xiaoliang believes that in addition to making adjustments to marketing strategies, medical device companies should also change the strategic direction of products. “Some companies will still develop new products through continuous innovation, because new products often still have the advantage of first-mover bonuses, and the speed of entering centralized procurement is relatively low, and there is still some room for price.” For Xu Xiaoliang believes that such enterprises should pay more attention to product production management, raw material management, labor costs, etc., and “must find a way to make their costs more advantageous than their competitors.”
The voice of “import substitution” is high: domestic products in some fields have covered more than 70% of the market
Since 2021, the voices of “innovative research and development of medical devices, import substitution, and technological breakthroughs” have become stronger in the national policy and industry.
On February 9, 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China and others drafted the “Medical Equipment Industry Development Plan (2021-2025)” (draft for comments), making it clear that major breakthroughs will be made in the field of key components and materials for medical equipment by 2025; March On the 6th, at the Fourth Session of the Thirteenth National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, it was again emphasized that we should concentrate our efforts on key core technologies and speed up the solution of the “stuck neck” problem of a number of medical devices.
In terms of local governments, taking Guangdong Province as an example, on March 2, 2021, the Guangdong Provincial Health and Health Commission issued the “Announcement on the List of Imported Products of Provincial Health and Health Institutions in 2021″, the list of 132 kinds of imported medical equipment was reduced to 46. medical equipment. On May 10, the Guangdong Provincial Medical Insurance Bureau pointed out that it will establish and improve the coordination mechanism of medical insurance payment standards and the centralized procurement of medical consumables. Research and development and use to promote the development of domestic medical consumables industry.
It can be seen from a series of policy measures that the country is making great efforts to promote industrial upgrading and import substitution, and the support will be as rapid as ever.
Until December 28 last year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the National Health and Health Commission, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Finance, the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the National Medical Insurance Administration, the State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and the State Food and Drug Administration 10 departments jointly issued the “14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Medical Equipment Industry”. The content shows that by 2025, the goal is to realize the advanced level of the medical equipment industry foundation and the modernization level of the industrial chain, etc., and initially form a comprehensive support capability for public health and medical health needs; by 2035, the research and development, manufacturing, and application of medical equipment Promoted to the world‘s advanced level, my country has entered the forefront of medical equipment innovation countries.
Xu Xiaoliang introduced to reporter Aoyi that Chinese medical devices have gone through 40 years of “from agency to original, from low-end to high-end”. He pointed out that the development of Chinese medical device enterprises will go through three stages. The first stage is the agency stage, and then the agency will transfer to self-research; the second stage is domestic substitution. “The products of enterprises in this stage are mainly high-tech stents, etc. , the main development logic is domestic substitution.” The third stage is local innovation and domestic originality. “Xu Xiaoliang analyzed that the current policy has increased support for excellent domestic equipment, and domestic enterprises are gradually improving their core competitiveness in technology.” Some domestic products with relatively low-end technology levels in the medical equipment industry are currently imported in the domestic market. 70%, 80% or even higher. In some areas with relatively advanced technology, some domestic enterprises have just made breakthroughs, and their market share is still at the stage of PK with foreign products. “
According to the statistics of Zhongcheng Digital Medical Equipment, as of the end of June 2021, there were 56 secondary product categories with a localization rate of 0%, a decrease of 6 items from the end of 2020; secondary product categories with a localization rate of 0%-70% There are a total of 322 items, and a total of 730 secondary product categories with a localization rate of 70% and above. Compared with the 858 secondary product categories with a localization rate of more than 50% at the end of 2020, there will be an increase of 53 from January to June 2021. As of the end of June 2021, a total of 911 secondary product categories with a localization rate of more than 50%.
Taking cardiovascular stents as an example, before 2004, many multinational giants such as Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic and Boston Scientific occupied the domestic coronary stent market. In 2004 and 2005, Minimally Invasive Medical and Lepu Medical successively launched domestic drug-eluting coronary stents, gradually competing for the market. At present, domestic brands Lepu, MicroPort and Jiwei together account for more than 70% of the market share of the cardiac stent market, and domestic brands have begun to dominate the cardiac stent market.
Source: Lepu Medical’s official website
Internet giants cross-border layout
The epidemic has given the medical device sector an opportunity for explosive growth, and Internet giants have also followed the news, rushing to enter the medical device industry, hoping to get a share of the pie.
Since the end of October last year, Jiu’an Medical has become the largest bull stock in the Shanghai and Shenzhen stock markets. With the FDA emergency use authorization obtained by the subsidiary’s new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) antigen home self-test OTC kit, the company’s stock price rose from less than 6 yuan to as high as 59 yuan in just 2 months. The reporter learned that since 2014, Jiu’an Medical has cooperated with Xiaomi and has become an important partner of Xiaomi in the medical and health field. In July 2021, Jiu’an Medical announced that it had signed an investment agreement with Xiaomi Ventures Limited (“Xiaomi Investment”). Jiu’an Medical intends to adjust the relevant global business of iHealth (the US subsidiary) to the structure of the proposed new independent entity (proposed to be named iHealth Inc) through the adjustment of the shareholding structure and the divestiture of the personnel business. Xiaomi Investment will increase the capital of this entity by 25 million US dollars, which will account for 20% after the capital increase is completed. Jiu’an Medical will set up a wholly-owned subsidiary overseas, and transfer all the existing overseas companies of iHealth to the newly established subsidiary, and at the same time assign iHealth-related personnel, patents, trademark know-how, etc. to the newly established subsidiary. iHealth will become Xiaomi’s partner in the field of mobile health. Xiaomi will carry out in-depth cooperation with iHealth in user experience, Xiaomi e-commerce and cloud services to jointly build a mobile health cloud platform.
On December 29, 2020, Shanghai Weihe Medical Laboratory Co., Ltd. was established with a registered capital of 1 million yuan. Its business scope includes inspection and testing services, medical services, medical research and experimental development. Tianyancha equity penetration shows that Weihe Medicine is 100% controlled by Xiaohe Health Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd., which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of ByteDance.
In addition, Tencent Medical Health‘s pneumonia CT image-assisted triage and evaluation software was approved, marking Tencent’s entry into the medical device arena; Chengdu Kuaigou Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned holding company of Kuaishou, has changed its business information, and its business scope has added health consulting services, The second category of medical device sales, the first category of medical device sales, the medical device industry has added another member. Under the impact of the general environment, medical device companies should also start to think about opportunities and solutions for digitalization. The entry of Internet giants means that the pace of the era of smart medical care is one step closer.
Aoyi News reporter Lin Shiyan and Liu JieReturn to Sohu, see more
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