Zhangjiang enjoys boom times for its high-tech devices

By Hao Nan | China Daily | Updated: 2017-12-06 06:52

The upstream sector for medical device manufacturing in Shanghai has experienced constant improvement in terms of its infrastructure and industrial system in recent years.

The industrial scale of medical device manufacturing in the city has surpassed that of biological medicine and traditional Chinese medicine. Important technological breakthroughs have been achieved in high-end medical imaging and diagnostic equipment, implanted devices, intelligent rehabilitation equipment and biomedical materials.

In the city's Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone, the total industrial output value of medical device manufacturing reached 11.43 billion yuan ($1.73 billion) in 2016, an increase of 5.2 percent compared with 2015.

The industry's sales income reached 11.56 billion yuan, up 9.1 percent year-on-year.

Last year, the overall sales income and profits from the manufacturing medical device industry's core businesses in Shanghai reached 20.84 billion yuan and 3.23 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 7.5 percent and 10.2 percent of the nation's total volume.

In the Zhangjiang innovation zone, sales income from these core businesses accounted for 55.5 percent of Shanghai's total in 2016, and profits accounted for 64.3 percent of the city's total in the industry. Two companies saw their sales revenues exceed 1 billion yuan that year.

The zone was home to 45 large medical device manufacturers last year, accounting for 34.9 percent of the city's total number. Of them, 28 are foreign-owned companies and joint ventures.

To accelerate innovation in the industry, the China Food and Drug Administration launched a special examination and approval approach for innovative medical devices in February 2014.

The administration had approved 148 products via this approach as of Sept 30. Of these, 26 product applications were submitted by the Shanghai-based companies, including 18 implanted medical instruments and four external diagnostic devices.

haonan@chinadaily.com.cn