New medical infrastructure continues to ramp up, grassroots medical equipment market ushers in hundreds of billions of yuan of demand
Recently, the official website of the Ministry of Finance released the Notice on Further Ensuring the funding for the Prevention and Control of the Novel Coronavirus Epidemic and Strengthening the Management of the funding for the Prevention and Control of the virus (hereinafter referred to as the Notice).
The Notice makes it clear that funding for epidemic prevention and control will be increased and investment in medical resource construction will be further strengthened, with a focus on strengthening the construction of medical resources for serious and infectious diseases in county hospitals and doing a good job of horizontal coordination and expansion and renovation of resources for emergency and critical care in rural areas.
In terms of financial support, the Notice proposes to support local governments in using general government bonds and issuing special government bonds for the construction of qualified medical and health projects. This move will undoubtedly accelerate the development of the medical industry.
01.Multiple policies to upgrade primary care
Since the COVID-19 epidemic, the shortcomings of China’s primary health and medical institutions have become prominent, and “new medical infrastructure” has become a key concern. The government has successively issued policies related to medical infrastructure construction.
Overall, the new medical infrastructure will not only expand the capacity of large public hospitals, but also improve the quality of grassroots medical institutions. Under the new model of graded treatment, a number of regional medical centres will be built, tertiary hospitals will be expanded, and a large number of county hospitals will been upgraded to tertiary hospitals and primary medical institutions to secondary hospitals, resulting in a new medical infrastructure with hundreds of billions of dollars of demand ready to be developed.
02.Financial support and continuous increase of new infrastructure
The funds needed for the construction of new medical infrastructure are mainly composed of central budgetary investment, local financial funds, local government special bonds and other channels.、
The central government allocated 65.39 billion yuan in subsidies for basic public health services in 2021, an increase of 33.43 percent year on year in 2022. As much as 87.251 billion yuan (including 7.989 billion yuan in subsidies for the comprehensive reform of public hospitals, 4.842 billion yuan in subsidies for the capacity building of medical and health institutions, 58.855 billion yuan in subsidies to support basic public health development, and 15.57 billion yuan in subsidies to support the prevention and control of major infectious diseases).
At the local level, the amount of local government special debt used for medical investment projects has increased significantly compared with that before the epidemic. After the epidemic, local governments have successively issued special medical and health bonds and PPP projects to invest in new medical infrastructure.
The Notice of the National Health Commission on Financial Subsidised Loans for the Renewal and Renovation of Medical Equipment, issued in September 2022, accelerated the construction of new medical infrastructure, with the use of loans directed towards the acquisition of various types of medical equipment, including diagnostic and treatment, clinical testing, critical care, rehabilitation, and scientific research and translation.
03.Purchase boom emerges, and the demand for middle to high-end equipment is released
It is worth noting that at present, the proportion of equipment with more than one million yuan in primary medical institutions is still low. In 2020, hospitals/primary medical institutions will only account for 3.15%/1.0% of the total number of equipment with more than one million yuan. Compared with developed countries, the allocation rate of AED, laparoscopic robots, PET, MRI, CT, ultrasound and other medical equipment in China is still at a low level. It is believed that with the improvement of R&D capacity of domestic enterprises and the support of national policies, domestic enterprises can gradually expand their market share.
In terms of the number of CT registrations in China, according to MDCLOUD statistics, as of November 12, 2022, the number of effective registered CT products in China is 179, among which 143 are domestic, accounting for 79.89%. United Image Medical is the domestic enterprise with the largest number of effective registrations, with a total of 14, and Neusoft Medical has a total of 11. Domestic leading enterprises in CT field, such as United Film and Neusoft, have gradually realized domestic substitution.
Source ：Joinchain
Translated & edited ： Bradyknows
