China - Country Commercial Guide
Healthcare
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Medical Devices

The PRC is the world’s second-largest healthcare market.  Medical devices remain an important healthcare sales sector for foreign businesses, in particular for high-end and technology-heavy medical devices.

Public hospitals remain the dominant buyers of medical devices. Data from the website of the National Health Commission indicated that by 2021 China had 36,570 hospitals, which offered over 7.4 million beds and received 3.88 billion patient visits. Among them, public facilities provided 70.2% of hospital beds and received 84.2% of patient visits.

The medical device market in China is expected to expand by a 2021-2026 Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.3%, bringing it to $48.8 billion by 2026. Imports of medical devices comprised three quarters of China’s market, while U.S. suppliers captured 27.2% of China’s medical device imports in 2021, valued at $5.62 billion.  In terms of subsectors within the medical device market, diagnostic imaging and consumables constituted nearly 50% of the market value.

China Medical Device Market in 2021

Data Source:Fitchsolutions

U.S. exporters should also be aware of policies in China that may impact their long-term plans, such as volume-based procurement (VBP) and diagnosis-related group (DRG) pricing. Additionally, public hospitals are now facing increasing pressure from the central and local governments to limit their procurement of imported medical devices and medical equipment.

Pharmaceuticals

China’s pharmaceutical market has been constantly growing and is expected to reach $161.8 billion by 2023, taking about 30% share of the global market. However, the opportunities for U.S. SME pharmaceutical companies to explore are limited since leading Chinese pharmaceutical companies and international MNC pharmaceutical companies (including those from the U.S.) have been dominating most of the market sales.  Additionally, many SMEs find the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) registration and the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) listing cost prohibitive.

Trade Events

  • China International Medical Equipment Fair (CMEF) -Shenzhen
  • DenTech China - Shanghai
  • Dental South China - Guangzhou
  • China Association of Clinical Laboratory Practice (CACLP) Expo - Nanchang
  • China Hospital Construction Conference - Chengdu
  • CPhl China (China Pharmaceutical) - Shanghai