NewsMed - China to improve health care for rural residents

China's rural residents make up around 60% of its huge 1.4 billion population. Currently, rural residents have a lack of healthcare unlike urban residents which have better access to healthcare services and reimbursements.

At the recent opening of the nation's annual parliament session, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao's announced his plan to improve health care aims to help hundreds of millions of the nation's poorest, especially in rural areas. Wen told legislators that the government would this year expand a medical insurance scheme, which is aimed at covering every rural resident by 2008.

The government will allocate an additional 4.2 billion yuan (520 million dollars) into the program, which was launched in 2003 in some areas. Over 40 percent of China's counties will be covered under the scheme this year, with the government to double its contribution to 40 yuan for each farmer, Wen said. The government will also spend more than 20 billion yuan over the next five years renovating hospital buildings in rural towns and counties and upgrading their equipment.

China's overall health care expenditures amounted to just 5.5 percent of GDP in 2004. China's Health Minister Gao Qiang told state media last month that this ratio is not only far lower than developed countries, but is lower than most developing countries.

Under the new medical insurance scheme the government is trying to expand, farmers each pay 10 yuan a year for their health insurance, that will cover minor ailments and health services. However, for catastrophic illnesses, reimbursements would likely be difficult to obtain. On top of that, the scheme already faces criticism as it is does not cover all patients' costs and requires farmers to first use rural hospitals, which are often dilapidated.

Overall, this piece of news is good new for most medical device manufacturers as it shows the commitment to development by the Chinese government towards healthcare services. This would also help to grow the market for medical devices in the long run.

ProMed - Inhale-able Insulin

One company in the United States have launched a product which allows diabetics to treat their illnesses using an inhaler which transmits insulin in vapour form for absorption by the body. This would revolutionize the insulin therapy industry, as it allows diabetic patients to live more conveniently, allowing them to opt for the pain-less way of inhaling insulin rather than injecting it through a syringe or infusion pump.
The product was invented a few years back but recently gained US FDA approval, allowing it to be marketed and distributed in the United States, the world's largest market of medical devices and insulin therapeutics.

StraMed - Focus on Cardio Devices

The medical device industry have a celebrity in the makings - the drug eluting stent. Used to cure artery blockages (scientifically known as ischaemic heart disease), drug eluting stents (DES) are now only manufactured by 2 companies, Johnson & Johnson's Cordis and Boston Scientific. However, investors all around the world are putting vast amounts of money into companies that are going into this market. For example, Guidant Corp. which has a DES in the making will be bought over by J&J Cordis for US$ 24.2 Billion and regionally, Singapore listed Biosensors share price was pushed up to above S$1.00 because of an expected release of its proprietary drug eluting stents due in 2006. Other large medical devices companies like Medtronic, Terumo, and Cook are also looking to launch their respective DES in the near future.
All this fuss about the cardiovascular devices market is due to the focus on high incidences of cardiac diseases across developing nations. With such diseases ranked amongst the top 5 mortality and morbidity causes in countries like Germany, US, UK, France, China, Korea, Singapore, Australia and Italy, there is a vast potential for systems to treat and cure a large number of patients and demand is expected to be supported with a fast ageing population as well as continuous practice of an unhealthy lifestyle like smoking and consumption of fast foods. Smoking and high cholestrol intake are 2 main aggravators of heart diseases, increasing risk by as much as 50%. However as people grow to become more health conscious, the question faced by investors will then be how to support sales volumes in the case of falling demand?
While it may not happen soon, some countries like Thaliand and Hong Kong have seen falling morbidity relating to cardiovascular diseases and though hospital admission numbers for such cases still fall within top 5 causes, high awareness of patients will ultimately lower the incidence of such diseases.

Welcome!

This blog serves to provide updates on the medical device industry, one that is in focus worldwide due to emerging technologies which will enrich human lives in times of illnesses. Medical devices includes a wide range of products from stents, implants, to consumer products like massage chairs, wheel chairs and contact lenses. These products serve to provide to mankind solutions to problems within the human body.
An analysis of the device industry for the region will be provided time to time especially in major growth hotspots like Asia-Pacific. Latest news regarding companies and products will be updated frequently along with some insights and author's comments.