70 years of national construction: The journey of medical devices

Celebrating the founding of the People's Republic of China70th Anniversary

1949 - 2019

On October 1, 1949, the People's Republic of China was founded, marking a new stage for a China that had endured hardship. China's medical and health services also embarked on a new journey. After 70 years of development, the number of people covered by our basic old-age insurance has exceeded 950 million, and the number of people covered by basic medical insurance has exceeded 1.35 billion, creating a basic medical security network and realizing the dream of "universal medical insurance."

Founding of the People's Republic of ChinaOver the past 70 years, especially since the reform and opening up, the development of China's medical and health services has been inseparable from the strong support provided by information technology. With the development of science and technology and modern medicine, medical devices have gradually become important tools and means for clinical diagnosis and treatment, and also an important indicator of the development level of medical technology. In the 70 years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, the medical devices equipped in our medical institutions have gone through a process from nothing, to gradually becoming abundant, and finally to being well-equipped; the domestic medical device industry has also developed from scratch to going international. During this process, the people have also enjoyed increasingly high-quality medical services.

Medical institutions' resources are becoming increasingly abundant

After the founding of the People's Republic of China, China experienced a period of shortage of doctors and medicines, and medical institutions at all levels were also veryimpoverished.

“Until the 1980s, the medical equipment in county-level hospitals in China was still limited to the ‘three major items’ of X-ray machines, biochemical analyzers, and black and white ultrasound machines. These were mainly examination equipment, and the examination methods were very limited. At the end of the 1980s, large hospitals in cities began to gradually equip themselves with CT and other medical devices.” Zhao Zilin, president of the Chinese Medical Equipment Association, introduced that after the reform and opening up, the various equipment configured in China's medical institutions gradually became truly abundant.

Ultrasound imaging doctor Wang Jingyu has been working at the First People's Hospital of Longquan District, Chengdu, Sichuan Province for28 years. When she started working in 1991, the hospital only had a five-story prefabricated building as its inpatient department, and the ultrasound room only had her and a black and white ultrasound machine. “In those days, there was no advanced equipment, no computers, and no assistants to keep records. After examining patients, I could only rely on my experience to judge the unclear ultrasound images on the screen and then write the report word by word.” Wang Jingyu said that at the end of the 1990s, the hospital purchased a second-hand ultrasound machine, which greatly improved the resolution of the equipment. After that, the ultrasound room gradually expanded to more than 10 people. At the end of 2016, the hospital moved to a new location, and the ultrasound imaging department also underwent a tremendous change, with 17 high-end ultrasound instruments.

With the rapid development of the economy and society, China's medical equipment level has made a qualitative leap.“Examination and testing equipment includes PET-CT and magnetic resonance imaging; medical consumables include cardiac stents and artificial joints; and treatment equipment includes surgical robots and heavy ion accelerators. Almost all of the world's most advanced medical equipment is now available in China.” Zhao Zilin said that the level of medical equipment configuration in medical institutions at all levels in China, from large tertiary hospitals to township health centers, has generally improved, and is incomparable to what it was before the reform and opening up. “This is inseparable from the increase in national investment in medical and health services and the improvement in people's demand for high-quality medical services.”}, {

Domestic equipment breaks the import monopoly

Almost all of the modern medical equipment initially equipped in Chinese hospitals was imported from abroad. This was inseparable from China's backward stage of social development and weak industrial base at that time. In the1950s and 1960s, this was the golden age of international medical device industry development, but at this time, the newly established China was still weak industrially and limited in national strength. The development of the medical device industry, which has high requirements for scientific research capabilities and manufacturing processes, was particularly backward.

The weak state of the medical device industry was quickly improved after the reform and opening up.

In 1991, a high-tech medical equipment manufacturing company, Mindray Medical, was established in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, a leading area in China's reform and opening up. Mindray people started by disassembling imported testing instruments and assembling and imitating them using domestic components, groping their way forward. Today, Mindray Medical's products cover major fields such as life information and support, clinical testing and reagents, and digital ultrasound, and are exported to more than 190 countries and regions around the world, entering the core departments of many top global hospitals and research institutions.

In the same year, in Shenyang, Liaoning Province, Northeastern University established a school-run enterprise (the predecessor of today's Neusoft Medical). Speaking of the hardships of the development of China's medical device industry, Neusoft MedicalCEO Wu Shao Jie said with deep feeling: “In the laboratory of Northeastern University, scientists successfully used personal computer (PC) chips to replace array processors, breaking the Western technological blockade on core components and pioneering the use of PC chips to manufacture large medical equipment.” In 1997, the first domestically produced CT was launched by Neusoft; in 1999, the first domestically produced CT was unveiled at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America; today, Neusoft Medical's products in radiology imaging, routine examinations, radiotherapy and nuclear medicine, and clinical applications have covered more than 110 countries worldwide, with more than 30,000 units installed globally.

“The development and maturity of domestic medical equipment has broken the monopoly of imported products. Ultrasound machines that used to cost hundreds of thousands of yuan now only cost more than 200,000 yuan; PET-CT machines that used to cost about 20 million yuan now only cost about 10 million yuan.” Zhao Zilin said that it has become a common consensus in the industry that the performance and quality of low- and mid-range medical equipment produced in China are comparable to imported products, and even surpass imported products in some aspects; in the field of high-end equipment, many products are also undergoing clinical testing; “This has played an important role in meeting the medical service needs of the people and reducing the burden of medical expenses.”

Strive to catch up and innovate and develop advanced technology

In recent years, China's scientific and technological strength has rapidly improved, and clinical diagnosis and treatment innovation has become increasingly prosperous, creating good basic conditions for independent innovation and research and development of medical devices. Against this background, the Chinese government has introduced many policies and measures to accelerate the innovative development of the industry.

Since the 12th Five-Year Plan, China has included the medical device field as a strategic priority for scientific and technological development, deploying a number of innovative research projects, vigorously promoting collaborative innovation among industry, academia, research, and medicine, and establishing a complete system for medical devices, from technological innovation, product development, and application evaluation to demonstration and promotion. In May 2017, China continued to formulate and issue the “13th Five-Year Plan” for Technological Innovation in Medical Devices, deploying strategic tasks in terms of breakthroughs in frontier and common technologies, major product research and development, demonstration and popularization, platform base layout, and industrial cluster development.

Under the continuous guidance and encouragement of national policies, the sparks of innovation emanating from clinical diagnostic practice, combined with industrial research and development capabilities, are bursting with vitality in the development of the medical device industry.