Outside senior medical equipment market

On September 14, Li Bingrong, President of Medtronic Greater China, said: “Localization will be a long-term strategy for Medtronic's development in China.”

Zhang Weihua, general manager of Shandong Weigao Group (HK08199), pointed out that "At present, we manufacture almost 100% of Medtronic's orthopaedic products in China and promote our own brands. The cooperation has enabled both parties to realize the full realization of orthopaedic implantable medical devices. Coverage.” At the end of 2008, after Medtronic, a US medical device manufacturer, purchased 15% of Shandong Weigao’s shares for HK$1.726 billion, Medtronic has been trying to achieve localization through Weigao. On September 14, the joint venture R&D center was established.

Weigao was already the largest disposable medical device manufacturer in China. Zhang Weihua disclosed: “Weigao would have also made orthopaedic products, but met with barriers to the intellectual property rights of Medtronic in the market. They did not take a crackdown strategy, but chose to take joint venture shares.”

The issue of Shandong Weigao is not uncommon in China. Academician Qiu Guixing introduced: “The domestic original medical equipment is quite scarce, accounting for only about 10% of the total, and most of them are low-value consumables. Due to the high profit margins, most domestic medical device companies only pay attention to the immediate interests, and the plagiarism is copied. , very little independent research and development."

In 2010, domestic medical equipment sales reached 120 billion yuan, and the average growth rate in the last five years exceeded 27%. It is expected that after five years, it will surpass Japan and become the world's largest consumer country. However, over 80% of high-end medical devices are monopolized by foreign brands. After foreign companies such as Medtronic are controlling large hospitals, they gradually begin to intervene in low-end and mid-range products to fully control the Chinese market.

Zhang Weihua said: "In cooperation with Medtronic, some products are still not fully realized for the low end. At present, more than 85% of our products are for tertiary hospitals and above, and there are still challenges in achieving market coverage."

However, Medtronic is ready to continue its sinking. Li Bingrong said: "Orthopedics is one of the directions of localization. We will continue to seek Chinese partners in other businesses in the future." He did not deny that mergers and acquisitions plans will take place in recent years. The main directions may be in the spine, trauma and other equipment. field.