China's medical equipment development has experienced from scratch, from small to large development process. By the end of 2000, the national medical equipment industry output value has exceeded 50 billion yuan, more than 5,700 medical equipment industrial enterprises, the production of more than 5,000 varieties, has been able to produce some high-tech products such as CT, nuclear magnetic **** vibration, color ultrasound, gamma knife. But compared with developed countries, China's medical equipment technology content is not high, many core technologies are still monopolized by developed countries, and accounted for less than 2% of the international market share.
Because of the huge consumer groups and the government's active support, China's medical equipment market development space is extremely broad, mainly in several aspects: ① accelerated economic development, people's living standards, the population gradually aging, health care needs upgrading, and promote the growth of health care consumption and demand for medical equipment; ② hospital information technology triggered by the growth in demand for medical equipment. With the development of computer and network technology, informatization and networking in the medical field has triggered the growth of demand for imaging, digitalization and other high-precision medical equipment, which has brought huge market space to medical device manufacturers; ③ National policy changes have led to the growth of demand for medical devices. The centralized bidding and purchasing system of drugs gradually reduces the dependence of hospitals on drug income, and improving medical service income is an important way for hospitals to reduce their dependence on drug income, and the resulting demand for medium- and high-grade medical equipments will be a sustained driving force for the development of medical equipment industry; ④ After joining the WTO, the degree of exportation of medical equipments in China has increased, and the space for joining the international market is more extensive; ⑤ The development of medical and health care will promote the growth of medical equipments, which will bring great market space for medical equipment manufacturers. The development of medical and health care will promote the increase of medical equipment consumption, China's existing medical institutions totaled 175,000, of which only 13,000 hospitals above the county level, the level of medical instruments and equipment is poor, and need to be improved, which gives China's medical equipment industry provides a broad space for development.
While the domestic medical equipment market is expanding, China's medical equipment manufacturers to a large extent still retain the traditional production model, the technical level is only in the middle and low-grade, the phenomenon of low-level duplication of production is serious, and the competitiveness is poor. Among the top 10 enterprises in China's medical device industry in terms of sales revenue, there are 7 foreign-funded and joint venture enterprises; among the top 50 enterprises, the sales revenue and total profit of joint ventures and foreign-funded enterprises are more than 50%, and the foreign-funded and joint venture enterprises have become the main force in the domestic medical device market. China in addition to ultrasound focusing and a few other technologies at the international leading level, the overall level of technology and foreign countries there is a large gap, and this situation is difficult to change in a short period of time.
2 Factors affecting the development of China's medical device industry
2.1 Economic factors
Economic factors constrain the speed and direction of the development of medical device industry. The level of total social health care costs depends on the level of social and economic development, estimated as a proportion of the gross national product (GNP). China at the end of the 20th century social health costs about 5% of the GNP, much lower than the United States (as early as 1993, the United States has reached 19%). At this stage, on the one hand, due to the limited level of people's consumption, the hospital economic strength is poor, most of the middle and lower hospitals can not afford to buy and use expensive modern medical equipment; on the other hand, by the national and corporate financial constraints, the capital investment is relatively small, and the lack of medical equipment development capacity, to a certain extent, restricting the development of medical equipment industry.
2.2 Technical factors
Compared with developed countries, China's technology level is relatively low, which is another important factor affecting the development of China's medical device industry. Data show that the overall level of medical equipment products in China is 15 years behind the developed countries, less than 5% of the major medical equipment products to reach the contemporary world advanced level, poor product reliability, backward performance, market competitiveness is weak. Even for the middle and low-grade medical equipment products, we can't compare with the developed countries. Taking ventilator as an example, the average trouble-free time of the product is only about 200h, while the foreign products up to 3,000h. In addition, today's medical equipment products are more and more high technology content, the possibility of the product being imitated greatly reduced, and the barriers to competition greatly improved. In short, the relatively low level of technology, weakening the competitiveness of China's medical device industry, greatly affecting the development of China's medical device industry.
2.3 Social factors
Social factors cover many aspects of the content, more complex. Such as: the conversion of enterprise ownership structure; the improvement of the market economic system; the establishment of a modern enterprise system; changes in the health care system; national policy support, etc., which all affect the development of China's medical device industry. With the deepening of the reform, the constraints on the development of China's medical device industry, a variety of social factors will gradually be resolved.
3 Countermeasures and Suggestions to Improve the Competitiveness of China's Medical Device Industry
3.1 National Policy Support and Protection
The rapid development of the industry relies on the booster role of industrial policy, and there are still constraints in China's medical device industry policy, which need to be further reformed: ① The state to develop some preferential policies on taxation, credit and so on. Europe and Japan's medical device industry is to support as a welfare industry, our country can learn from reference; ② to be in the government procurement policy to give appropriate support. Under the same conditions should give priority to the purchase of domestic medical equipment products; ③ to establish and improve the standard certification system of medical devices, strengthen the certification efforts, and strive for early convergence with international standards; ④ to increase the macro-control efforts to a wide range of medical devices as the focus of the development of medical equipment by adjusting the structure of medical device industry, products and enterprise organization, and to encourage enterprises to combine and merge, to achieve economies of scale in order to improve production concentration and market share. Concentration and market share; ⑤ Medical device industry is a multidisciplinary cross, knowledge-intensive, capital-intensive high-tech industry, the current situation, a single enterprise either financially or technically difficult to complete large-scale research and development, the government needs to tilt the scientific research fund.
3.2 Improvement of enterprise's own competitive strength
Enterprises should make more efforts to enhance their own strength by strengthening their R&D capability, improving their marketing level, adjusting their product structure, paying attention to quality management, and strengthening exchanges and cooperation. This is the key to improve the competitiveness of China's medical device industry.
(1) Strengthen R&D capability. Medical device industry is a multidisciplinary cross, knowledge-intensive, capital-intensive high-tech industries, involving pharmaceuticals, machinery, electronics, plastics and other industries, relatively high technology content. At present, China's medical device manufacturing enterprises are large in number and small in scale, and seriously lack of R&D and scale production strength. Therefore, to strengthen the R & D capability, accelerate the upgrading of products, and improve the scientific and technological content of products is the current imperative of China's medical device enterprises.
(2) Improve the marketing level. In the competition with international leading enterprises, localized direct marketing will become the advantage of domestic enterprises, while the low integrity and fragile network of the agency model is the weakness of the marketing of imported products. Therefore, give full play to the advantages of direct marketing, pay attention to the brand-name effect, and improve the level of marketing is a powerful weapon for domestic enterprises to win the competition.
(3) Adjustment of product structure. Priority should be given to the development of economical and practical, high-quality medium and low-grade products, not one-sided emphasis on high-precision, sophisticated products, but should give comprehensive consideration to the efficacy of good, reliable quality, low-cost products. To carry out market analysis and demand forecast, the production of marketable products, in order to achieve maximum economic and social benefits.
(4) pay attention to quality management. China's medical equipment than foreign products in the quality and after-sales service there is a large gap. Emphasis on product quality management, strengthen after-sales service, is China's medical equipment enterprises to win market competition in the long term.
(5) Strengthen the exchange and cooperation. Domestic medical equipment manufacturers to strengthen exchanges and cooperation to improve the overall level of China's medical equipment industry, and actively expand foreign contacts, and with the world's major economies (regions) of some important well-known enterprises to establish a solid cooperative relationship, to achieve "learn from the strengths of all, for my use".
Accession to the WTO is both an opportunity and a challenge for China's medical device enterprises. Favorable to the medical equipment to expand the opening up of the domestic medical equipment industry structure and import and export structure, is conducive to reducing the cost of medical equipment raw materials, supporting parts imported to improve the competitiveness of China's medical equipment industry and the overall level; accession to the WTO, so that the original fierce competition is deteriorating, multinational corporations to participate in the market of China's medical equipment enterprises to the competition in China's national medical equipment industry. The only way to improve the competitiveness and overall level of China's medical device industry is to improve the competitiveness of China's medical device enterprises. The only way to improve the competitiveness of China's medical equipment enterprises is to make China's medical equipment have its own market in the international arena
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