In Vitro Diagnostic Industry in China - Immunoassay V

3.2    China Immunoassay Market

By rapid development of China's immunoassay, the market share of chemiluminescence has gradually expanded. Immunoassay diagnosis was already the largest sub-field of the market in China, currently accounting for about 25%.

The China's chemiluminescence market is basically monopolized by foreign giants, for example, Roche, Abbott, Siemens, and Beckman Coulter. The Chinses top 3A hospitals were the main target group of these players because of their requirements for higher accuracy, huge sample numbers, and numerous testing items. At the same time, because almost all chemiluminescence systems were basically closed system, instruments and reagents would be sold in bundle contract, from which these players got a huge amount of profit from the continuous consumption of reagents. For hospitals of level 2 or below, it was not commonly available of those systems out there due to less samples and high costs, which left a huge market for local manufacturers.

As the chemiluminescence market capacity was increasing, import substitution would be one of the trends of chemiluminescence, because of the new medical policy for regional centralized laboratory and primary care system which were potentially favorable to local players.

The core competitiveness of Chinses manufacturers of chemiluminescence was "R&D + price + distribution channel."

1. R&D: The threshold for chemiluminescence R&D was high; therefore, imported systems would be the first choice of level 3A hospitals because of the accuracy and full test manual, which were the representative of the R&D capability. However, local systems have caught up after the investment to R&D in Chinses manufacturers.

2. Price: Under the same situation, the economic benefits for hospitals by using local systems were much greater than imported systems.

3. Distribution channel: From 2012 to 2015, the industry gradually switched to a small investment mode; that is, distributors got the profit from the reagent and consumables with free or low payment for instrument. A new business way, centralized purchasing service, has changed the whole industry a lot.

It was all covered by the manufacturer for the construction, purchasing, after-sale services, and value-added services for the clinical laboratories, which significantly reduced the cost and increased the efficiency in the lab. The centralized purchasing service would change the whole environment of distribution, which needed the powerful manufacturers with wide production line to combine the resources for rapid growth in future.

Generally speaking, chemiluminescence would be with around 20% increasing of whole industry, indicated by industry analysis, with rapid import substitution in this largest sub-field of IVD market in recent 3-5 years. Those players with high capability of R&D, full test manual, and wide distribution way would be superior than others during future competition.

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