In recent years, the scale of China's medical device market has shown a rapid growth trend. The "2015 China Medical Device Industry Development Blue Book" shows that the total size of China's medical device market last year was about 308 billion yuan, and the market growth rate is much higher than the global market.
The highspeed development of Dongfeng in the medical device market, the establishment of the Austrian medical device service company in Guangzhou, after more than ten years of development of business scope has covered the three core markets of China, the United States and Germany. Last year, Aostar won the "Excellent Enterprise" in the 4th China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, the "First Prize" in the Guangdong Finals, and the "First Prize" in the Guangzhou Finals. In January of this year, Aotech successfully listed the new three board. Not long ago, Aostar also signed a strategic cooperation intention with Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Group. In the future, the two parties will jointly establish an “International Medical Device R&D Incubation Industry Platform”.
In an exclusive interview with Nanfang Daily, Zhang Feng, Chairman of Aotech, said that Austin is a global provider of one-stop clinical and registration solutions for medical devices, covering the medical device industry chain. “Compared with the global mature market, China's medical device service market has a wide growth space and the cake is big enough.”
Nanfang Daily reporter Peng Lin Intern Ke Chao
Start a business
Filling the gap in the domestic medical device service market
“We started medical device service as early as 2004. At that time, the domestic market was almost blank.” Zhang Feng, Chairman of Aotech, is an international medical device strategy expert and regulatory expert with more than 20 years of experience in the medical device industry. He once served as a vice president of a large domestic medical device listed company. In 2004, Zhang Feng returned to China and was keenly aware of the market gap of China's medical device CRO, and founded the Aosta Medical Device Service Company.
CRO (Contract Research Organization) originated in the United States in the early 1980s. It provides professional services in basic medical and clinical medical research and development through contractual forms for pharmaceutical companies, medical institutions, and medical devices. According to the professional direction, CRO can also be divided into different professional categories, such as medical equipment CRO.
Zhang Feng said that the development of CRO in the world is inevitable, especially as the global pharmaceutical companies' R&D investment costs increase, the R&D cycle becomes longer, and the R&D success rate decreases. CRO's service scope has been covered by its low cost and high efficiency. The whole process of research and development has become an indispensable link in the medical research and development industry chain.
“Compared with the growth rate of Europe, America and the global market, China’s medical device CRO market has more space.” Zhang Feng told reporters that China’s medical device CRO market is worth between 8 billion and 10 billion yuan per year, and Aotech is a medical device company. Provide a comprehensive, one-stop, comprehensive clinical and regulatory solution. Technical services include clinical trials of medical devices, global medical device registration, biostatistics, medical device training, and medical device professional consulting.
According to Zhang Feng, the company was established in Guangzhou. At that time, there was no concept of professional service for medical device regulations in China. From the government to the enterprise, this method was not recognized. After several years of development, Aostar has registered the three major elements of the medical device industry chain, “R&D, registration, and sales” as an industry development, creating medical device system consultants, medical device product registrars, etc. Such professional positions have become the leading medical device service providers in China. The company has six departments: clinical center, regulatory affairs center, marketing center, management center, training development center and overseas business center.
After the development of the structure in Guangzhou, Aostar quickly expanded to the first-tier cities of Beijing and Shanghai, expanding this new service concept to the whole country. Zhang Feng told reporters that Austin was originally a national or even global layout. Domestic Beijing and Shanghai are two important markets for medical devices, and they should not be missed.
layout
Covering the three major medical device core markets of China and Germany
Zhang Feng said that 2010 is the watershed for the development of Oswego. On the one hand, the company's layout effect in the north, north and south of the country began to appear. At the same time, Aostar began to explore the international layout.
“In 2010, the company’s signing amount was only 2 million, and by 2014, we signed more than 70 million.” Zhang Feng said that the turnover has tripled in four years, except for the company’s professional services in medical device services. Strategic layout has a lot to do with it. In the four urban circles of Guangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, 60% of China's medical device manufacturers are concentrated in these four regions, and deepening the four city cakes is big enough. Then, Oswego began a global layout.
In September 2013, the Austrian branch of Austin was established. Zhang Feng told reporters that in the medical device market, China, Europe and the United States account for more than 50% of the global consumer market, of which Germany is the core and hub of the European market. “So, the first stop for our overseas expansion was in Germany.”
Zhang Feng said that the European market has its own particularities and is different from the global market. In Europe, it is difficult to contact a company. It is not convenient to call on the door. It is generally not familiar with each other through industry conferences and technical forums. European companies will be willing to talk about cooperation.
At present, Europe has a relatively large global medical device, while China exports to Europe, and the import and export markets of European imports to China are also growing. According to Zhang Feng, European medical device companies hope that there will be an agency in the local area to help European companies export medical equipment to China, and also help China's excellent medical equipment to be imported into Europe. “The branch we established in Germany played this role, and we have cooperated with many German companies. Later, we entered the US market and copied the German experience.”
Zhang Feng told reporters that in 2014 the state leaders made a state visit in Europe and met some Chinese companies, including Oswego. “Aostar represents the output of China’s highend service industry, which has long been monopolized by foreign companies.” He said that the company has shifted its focus to clinical trials and registration of medical devices since 2012. Most of the cooperative companies are high-end medical devices.
future
Jointly build an international medical device research and development incubator industry platform
On March 22 this year, Aostar and Guangzhou Baiyunshan Pharmaceutical Group signed a strategic cooperation intention. According to the announcement issued by Baiyun Mountain, the two parties will jointly establish the “International Medical Device R&D Incubation Industry Platform”.
It is reported that the two sides will jointly establish a Baiyunshan AOSTAD International Medical Device Incubation Industrial Park, and accelerate the forward-looking and high-end medical device projects with the function to settle in Guangzhou, and establish a cluster of strategic emerging industries for medical devices. At the same time, the two sides will also cooperate to jointly build Baiyunshan AOSTAR Medical Devices and Translational Medicine Research Institute, share resources with Baiyunshan AOSTADIA International Medical Device Incubation Industrial Park, provide technical and research and development support, and accelerate the research and development of imported projects and enterprises. Incubation and transformation of results.
Talking about the cooperation with Guangzhou Baiyun Mountain, Zhang Feng said that this cooperation is based on the judgment of the development trend of medical equipment and great health in Guangzhou. Guangzhou has a unique advantage in the construction of the medical device industrial park. First, the medical equipment is done early, and the industrial park area has also formed a scale. “Many traditional enterprises in Guangzhou are facing transformation and upgrading. The high-end medical equipment is a direction of industrial upgrading. At present, medical devices in China and the world are showing rapid growth.”
As a leading pharmaceutical company in China, Guangyao Baiyun Mountain has begun to lay out the “four major sectors” of Da Nan Medicine, Da Health, Big Business and Big Medical, and carry out the development of the whole industry chain. Guangyao Baiyunshan said that the joint ACE is only one of the efforts of Guangyao Baiyunshan Medical Equipment. In the future, it will enter the field through various forms such as international cooperation, mergers and acquisitions and shareholding.
In Zhang Feng's planning, Aostar will build an online medical device SAAS platform + offline (CRO + RA + testing + certification) global medical device professional vertical service platform to form a system to meet changing laws and regulations. A professional medical device industry information platform that integrates research and development, production, sales, marketing, laws and regulations, and industry information in line with global regulatory and market needs.
Third party review
Liu Wei, a researcher at the China Investment Advisory Center for Health Industry:
Policy change is its biggest unknown risk
The competitive advantage of Aostar is that the company's innovative application software system and management platform can realize the whole life cycle management of the project from project application to settlement evaluation. It has more than ten years of registration system and clinical project management experience, and has already mastered a certain scale. International and domestic customer resources and industry big data. Under the background of accelerating population aging and upgrading medical health demand, the market environment of medical device third-party service industry is generally better. Policy change is the biggest unknown risk of medical device third-party service enterprises, but it is also an opportunity for development. .
In the future, medical devices will be a trillion-level market. With the marketization and professionalization of the medical device industry, the proportion of professional services for medical device CRO will gradually increase. Compared with foreign countries, China's medical device consumption and drug consumption structure are deformed, and the high-end market is still mostly occupied by foreign companies, but it also shows that China's medical device industry has a lot of room for development. With the outbreak of medical health demand in China and the increase in government support, the domestic medical device industry and related services CRO industry will achieve further development.