Chang-Hong Whitney07.24.08
Looking deeper into China’s medical device market, some global and regional companies are making the news as well.
For example, London, United Kingdom-based Smith & Nephew recently broke ground on its first China manufacturing facility in Suzhou Industrial Park, Suzhou City, Zhejiang Province. With an initial investment of $80 million, this China facility will manufacture medical devices to supply 65 countries around the world. Smith & Nephew will have plenty of internationally based neighbors there, as Suzhou Industrial Park is the location for other medical giants such as Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Baxter and Eli Lilly and Company.
In terms of local medical device companies, Jiangsu Haiming Medical Equipment Company, through collaboration with the People’s Liberation Army Research Institute, has developed new equipment for use in cancer treatments; products include radiation therapy equipment, therapy simulators and double photon accelerators. The company recently released an electron accelerator (model HM-J-16)—which was jointly developed with Nanjing University—for treatment of cancer. The product’s remote monitoring and troubleshooting diagnostic system was the first to be approved in China.
Meanwhile, Changchun Optical Precision Instrument and the Physics Research Institute of China Academy of Sciences released a high-resolution fundus imaging compensation system. This instrument can clearly capture images of blood vessels of less than 3 microns, assisting in diagnosis of cardiovascular and other diseases.
Finally, Qinghua University’s bioengineering department has achieved significant progress in development of a non- invasive tissue/blood oxygen saturation instrument using a near infrared method. There are two conventional methods to measure blood-oxygen saturation: a blood-gas diagnostic test and fingertip oxygen saturation clip. The first method is a laboratory test requiring a patient blood sample. While accurate, this test cannot achieve continuous monitoring. The second method has been popular, but it measures arterial oxygen saturation at fingertips, not reflecting oxygen saturation levels in other areas of the body. The newest instrument uses near infrared spectrum technology to continuously monitor the absolute oxygen saturation value and changes in red blood cells. China is only the third country (after the United States and Japan) that manufactures this type of technology. In clinical trials, the new instrument was used to determine oxygen levels in the brain for newborn infants, for muscle injury recovery and for other surgery recovery and implants. The results of these trials validated the effectiveness of the instrument.