Infusion Pump Industry: Breaking Down from Low-priced Products

According to reports from grass-roots hospitals on April 6, the price of their favorite infusion pump products should be between 5,000 and 10,000 yuan. Infusion pumps are precision medical devices that use mechanical or electronic control of infusions. Infusion pumps have been listed for at least half a century. Infusion pumps are mainly used for the infusion of drugs that must strictly control the amount of medication (infusion volume), such as antihypertensive drugs, hypoglycemic agents (such as insulin), anti-arrhythmic drugs, anesthetics, and opioids used by advanced cancer patients. Strong analgesics and so on. Infusion pumps can be divided into two major categories according to their working methods, namely pneumatic pumps and mechanical pumps.

In recent years, infusion pump products have been promoted to clinical use in developed countries. According to international consulting company Frost & Sullivan, in the past few years, about 50% to 60 million people worldwide use infusion pumps for treatment. It is estimated that in 2010, the total sales volume of the global infusion pump market was as high as 98 billion U.S. dollars, so infusion pump products have become a major category of important products in the international medical device market. However, experts pointed out that the largest market for infusion pumps is still in developed countries such as the United States, Europe and Japan, and hospitals/institutions in developing countries, including China, are still relying on artificial infusion methods so that the infusion pump market has great development space. .

Developed new products in developed countries have now developed a variety of infusion pump products listed on the market, such as matt type infusion pumps suitable for use during the day, hibernation type infusion pumps suitable for night use, safe infusion pumps, needle type infusion pumps, active infusion pumps, etc. . In recent years, foreign manufacturers have successively introduced several new infusion pump products, such as smart infusion pumps (which can automatically infuse different doses of various drugs, including intravenous needles, scalp subdural needles, and common injection needles. Different needles, and storage of a large number of injection liquids), opioids strong analgesic infusion pump, colloidal infusion pump, universal infusion pump (with R99 software, doctors simply enter the drug name in the computer, the infusion pump can be automatically Begin patient infusion and automatically determine the dose and input speed of the input medication).

Newly developed infusion pumps in the United States include:

1. Aerosol infusion pump. In fact, it is not a device suitable for intravenous infusion but an automatic aerosol inhalation device for pulmonary inhalation. Aerosols are currently very popular in the international pharmaceutical market. It is estimated that the current total global aerosol production and sales volume reaches more than one billion, and its main use is to treat asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and chronic bronchitis. Last year, a U.S. company developed a new aerosol infusion pump for lung disease treatment. It is a model for the perfect combination of aerosol and infusion pump technology. The product is also suitable for respiratory diseases such as asthma and chronic bronchitis. It is expected that this versatile infusion pump new product will have a broad market prospect.

2. Last year, Fluidnet Medical launched a new lightweight portable infusion pump product that weighs just over 900 grams. The machine is less noisy at work and its revolutionary design consists of a flow sensor that monitors the infusion flow in real time and feeds back to the computer to correct the infusion rate at any time. According to the manufacturer, the infusion volume of the infusion pump can be from a very small dose of 0.1 ml per hour to a very large dose of 6000 ml, so the range that doctors can choose is larger. With the continuous development of computer software technology, recently foreign companies are developing new generation of new intelligent infusion pump products. It is a combination of high-performance software and infusion pumps. When end users such as hospitals use smart infusion pump products, they can greatly reduce the amount of labor for doctors to calculate the amount of medications used by patients, and reduce errors in medication. Recently, Europe's largest infusion pump manufacturer, German Ballius Group, invested 77 million Euros to build the largest intelligent infusion pump production base in Europe in Avitum, Germany. It is expected that the annual output of intelligent infusion pumps at the base will reach 207,000 units.

Domestic should develop low-priced products China's medical device industry began to develop and produce infusion pumps in the 1990s. At present, it has formed an annual production capacity of several hundred thousand infusion pumps. There are about 17 infusion pump manufacturers. Among them, the technical indicators of some domestic infusion pump manufacturers have approached the quality level of similar products of foreign counterparts. According to domestic reports, infusion pumps produced by Zhejiang University Medical Instrument Company not only occupy a large share in the domestic market, but also have been exported to more than 30 countries in the world including Europe. However, in general, the infusion pump has not been widely used in our country. The main reason is that the selling price is relatively high (about 20,000 yuan each), which limits the use of infusion pump products in hospitals below the county level. The following hospitals at the county level account for about 70% of the total number of domestic hospitals.

In fact, so far, the vast majority of domestic hospitals are still undergoing artificial infusion, and artificial infusion has become increasingly unsuited to the development of modern medical services. Because bioengineering drugs (recombinant DNA protein drugs) have been widely used in clinical treatment, and the dosage of such drugs is small, the infusion volume and infusion rate must be strictly controlled. In addition, infants and critically ill patients are major users of infusion pumps in foreign hospitals. In developed countries, almost all hospital beds have an infusion pump on the bedside. In China, only wards with more than 3A hospitals are equipped. Therefore, from the current situation of the use of infusion pumps in China, there is a huge market space.

According to industry sources, the problems and risks in China's infusion pump industry are:

First, most domestic infusion pump products simply blindly imitate the style of foreign-listed products and have no originality.

Second, some home-made infusion pumps use PVC raw materials to make infusion tubes to reduce costs, while foreign companies use special plastic materials for infusion tubes. In particular, some consumable materials, because domestic products are used only once, the cost is too high, causing the patient to be overburdened.

Thirdly, some domestic infusion pump products have common problems such as vein running, bubbling, and siltation under the skin during use, and products lack corresponding alarm devices, which may easily lead to medical accidents, and foreign infusion pump products have long been resolved. The above problem. This shows that there is a huge gap in the quality between domestic infusion pumps and foreign infusion pumps.

Fourth, the price of infusion pumps is still a little higher than that of ordinary patients. According to grass-roots hospitals, the price of their favorite infusion pump products should be between 5,000 and 10,000 yuan.

In summary, domestic medical device manufacturers should increase the development of universal and medium-to-low-priced infusion pump products, so that they can be accepted by the majority of rural hospitals or grass-roots hospitals. Taking into account the actual income of the majority of working-class patients in China, only an infusion pump selling for several thousand yuan can be truly accepted by the following hospitals at the county level.