Driven by both domestic and overseas demand, China’s medical device sector has been rapidly growing, attracting more domestic players. EVE Energy Co, a domestic battery maker, announced in June it will establish a unit to develop and produce batteries for medical use. The company, which is listed on the Shenzhen bourse with a market value of over CNY100 billion, has launched battery solutions for seven types of medical devices, such as an automated external defibrillator, a respirator, and a brain pacemaker. Compared to consumer batteries, medical-use batteries have stricter requirements, such as product safety, energy density, lifespan and adaptability. Requirements and standards for those used in implantable medical devices are even higher. For example, for a vitro automated external defibrillator (AED) the battery must be able to perform a high-discharge current at a broad temperature span ranging from -40ºC to 50ºC. In addition, as AEDs require long standby periods, supporting batteries need to have high-energy density, slow self-discharge and low maintenance costs. The market for such batteries has long been monopolized by foreign companies. A single implantable U-shaped battery can be priced at up to USD600.
“The need to cut battery prices offers domestic enterprises great opportunities,” said Yao Jing, Analyst of medical devices at VBData.cn, a Chongqing-based healthcare service platform. EVE Energy said that so far it has provided batteries for more than 50 million AEDs, with average standby surpassing five years. Its brain pacemaker batteries have completed more than 1,000 clinical application tests. The diameter of its capsule endoscope is only 7 millimeters and the endurance of the battery is 10 to 15 hours. The company said that it has reduced the defect rate of its medical batteries to less than 1%.
New energy vehicle maker BYD is also tapping into the sector. According to Qichacha, a corporate information-sharing platform, BYD on March 31 registered two trademarks under the medical device category. Yao said pioneering manufacturing enterprises are empowering the medical device sector to break the foreign monopoly, make up for the weaknesses of industrial chains, and realize high-end development. “The development of high-end medical devices inevitably involves upstream industrial chains such as electronic components, raw materials, software and emerging technologies. The participation of related enterprises helps medical device manufacturers break past R&D bottlenecks,” he said.
China issued a guideline in 2021 on the medical equipment industry’s development during the 14th Five Year Plan period (2021-25), setting the goal that by 2025 the industry should witness major improvements in the modernization of the industrial chain. Mainstream medical equipment should achieve effective supply, and the performance and quality level of high-end medical equipment should significantly improve. According to global market research firm Frost & Sullivan, in 2022, China’s medical device market reached CNY958.2 billion, growing 13.6% on a year-on-year basis, the China Daily reports.
