preface
Increasing ageing increases the risk of disease. Data show that families with long-term bedridden patients in mainland China account for more than 8% of the total number of families in the country, and tens of millions of families are troubled by the rehabilitation and nursing of the disabled elderly.
According to the open source securities research report, the total demand for rehabilitation medical devices in mainland China is about 128.7 billion yuan, and the incremental market is about 90.6 billion yuan, with huge incremental space.
With the upgrading of the elderly care industry, related medical devices such as nursing, monitoring, nursing, and rehabilitation will usher in greater market opportunities, and many companies have or plan to go deep into the field to seize the layout.
According to AgeClub statistics, since 2023, a total of 13 listed companies have carried out related business and 10 large-scale investment and financing events. In addition, 9 companies have clearly stated that they will enter the vertical track of elderly medical devices.
In this article, AgeClub will analyze the innovative enterprise cases of domestic geriatric medical devices this year, help practitioners grasp the development trend of the industry, and gain insight into the latest market opportunities.
PART 01
Around the rigid demand of the silver-haired group,
Layout a new growth pole in the pension industry
As one of the branches of medical devices, rehabilitation medical devices started late in China and belong to a relatively new industry.
However, in terms of development, the growth rate of this segment is higher than the overall level of the elderly industry, and it is still in the golden development period with broad prospects.
From the demand side, according to the Lancet study, China is the country with the largest rehabilitation demand in the world, with a total rehabilitation demand of 460 million people in 2022; by 2025, it is expected that the market size of China's rehabilitation industry will increase to 292 billion yuan, of which the market size of rehabilitation medical devices is 81 billion yuan, with a CAGR of 13.97% from 2021 to 2025.
Rehabilitation is aimed primarily at the elderly. By the end of 2022, there were 209.78 million elderly people aged 65 and above in the country, accounting for 14.9% of the total population.
In the future, aging will drive the development of rehabilitation medical device related industries.
From the perspective of policy, in recent years, favorable policies in the field of rehabilitation have been frequent. Precise governance has provided a strong guarantee for the development of the industry, and the rehabilitation industry has entered a stage of rapid development.
In March 2022, the National Health Commission and other departments issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for Healthy Aging", pointing out that rehabilitation and nursing services for the elderly should be strengthened, and the role of rehabilitation medicine in elderly health services should be fully utilized.
In February 2023, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Deepening Reform and Promoting the Healthy Development of the Rural Medical and Health System, encouraging the expansion of service functions such as rehabilitation and medical treatment.
In addition, the State Medical Products Administration is also continuously deepening the reform of medical device review and approval, optimizing the review and approval process, and continuously improving the efficiency of review and approval.
Under the continuous promotion of market demand and favorable policies, the attitude of enterprises towards rehabilitation medical devices has changed from wait-and-see testing to in-depth investment, which has accelerated the emergence of innovative products and the rapid growth of the rehabilitation medical device market.
Comprehensive analysis of the current situation of the medical device industry with a silver economy in 2023, there are three main directions:
1. Listed companies rush to land layout
According to AgeClub's preliminary combing, more than ten A-share listed companies have been involved in rehabilitation medical equipment, household medical equipment and other industries:
At a time when many industries are facing profitability difficulties, according to AgeClub statistics, 92% of companies in the medical device field with strong demand from the elderly achieved good revenue last year.
Among them, the annual revenue of Jiuan Medical and Dean Diagnostics exceeded 20 billion yuan, reflecting the huge potential space of the industry behind the rapid growth.
2. New trends in investment and financing
Since 2023, there have been about 10 investment and financing events related to middle-aged and elderly rehabilitation medical device and household medical device enterprises, the details of which are as follows:
As can be seen from the chart, the aging process has intensified, making the medical device market a "gold-absorbing track" that has attracted much attention from capital, and the number and amount of financing have risen steadily.
From the perspective of financing rounds, A round and previous financing totaled 7, accounting for 70%, most companies are still in their infancy, Zhuodao Medical and Kuanyue Orthopedics have entered the B round, and the company's business has expanded rapidly.
From the perspective of financing amount, tens of millions of financing account for the vast majority, and there is no lack of hundreds of millions of large financings.
3. Leading the industry trend
In addition to the frequent entry of listed companies and investment and financing cases, many other companies have also followed this investment trend, trying or planning to carry out medical device related businesses such as rehabilitation aids and blood pressure monitoring to grasp the dividends of aging.
Among them, Mindray Medical and New Leading Pharma have cooperated with other companies to conduct product research and development. Nanjing Pharmaceutical and Yingtong Communications have invested in the establishment of funds or new companies, focusing on the field of geriatric medical devices.
It is worth noting that despite the huge demand and the paving of the way, how to make a profit is still a problem that plagues many new entrants. AgeClub will try to explore the best entry path in this field based on the practical experience of listed and invested financing companies.
PART 02
Listed companies work together,
New opportunities for subdivision of the track
Geriatric rehabilitation medical devices are an area that many listed companies pay close attention to. With the deepening of the aging trend, the potential of the rehabilitation care market behind the large number of disabled and semi-disabled elderly people has been continuously exploited and recognized.
In the past half year, the subdivision track has been the biggest trend of listed companies in the layout of rehabilitation medical devices. In this article, AgeClub will analyze this trend in detail.
1. Product segmentation for three types of the elderly: nursing care and rehabilitation testing
In recent years, a new elderly care service model represented by the United States, the Continuous Care Community (CCRC), has gradually attracted the attention of mainland elderly care institutions.
Under the CCRC model, the elderly are divided into three categories according to their physical health status, degree of self-care and degree of professional medical care intervention:
- Self-help elderly: generally 55 to 65 years old, able to take care of themselves, living in independent communities. In order to enrich daily life, nursing institutions will organize various forms of activities for them, such as universities for the elderly, interest associations, etc.;
- Assisted elderly: generally 65 to 70 years old, living in assisted living communities, losing part of the ability to take care of themselves in daily living behaviors, and needing to rely on handrails, crutches, wheelchairs and lifting facilities;
- Nursing care elderly: mostly over 75 years old, due to the influence of various diseases, the elderly can basically not take care of themselves, need rehabilitation training and nursing care.
The classification of rehabilitation medical devices corresponds to this, and nursing care companies produce smart wheelchairs, crutches and massage chairs for self-help and mediated elderly.
For example, Yingke Medical mainly produces elderly wheelchairs, lift machines, walkers, crutches, toilet chairs and other care products; Xinlong Health is committed to the research and development of elderly electric wheelchairs, scooters and hospital bed tables.
Photo: Xinlong Health Old Age Walking Car
Rehabilitation testing companies develop rehabilitation equipment and treatment equipment for various diseases for the nursing elderly.
For example, geriatric sphygmomanometer and blood pressure monitor are the core business of Jiuan Medical; Lepu Medical invests in the production of rehabilitation equipment for elderly cardiovascular diseases.
Pictured: Jiuan Medical iHealth smart arm electronic blood pressure monitor
In this way, all kinds of enterprises can accurately grasp their customer portraits, fully understand the needs of the elderly, and then combine product attributes and corporate culture to provide them with refined operations and achieve sustainable growth in performance.
2. Re-segmentation of chronic diseases in the elderly, precise product positioning
After the epidemic, chronic disease management has been hanging on the hot search in the medical industry.
According to the Arterial Orange database, in 2020 alone, the cumulative financing amount in the field of digital chronic disease management in mainland China was about 10 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of nearly 60%.
Entering 2023, this market will continue to rise. Listed companies such as Jiuan Medical, Yuyue Medical, Kangtai Medical, and Lepu Medical have shown great interest in the field of chronic disease management in the elderly.
Although the entry method is different, each company has a precise positioning of the product direction.
For example, Yuyue Medical mentioned in its 2022 annual report that the company has achieved remarkable results in the field of diabetes, with a steady expansion of business scale, with a year-on-year growth rate of 16.04%, and the market share of related products and customer base have achieved good growth.
It can be seen that in the field of diabetes, Yuyue Medical has formed a complete product matrix with years of technology accumulation and market experience.
Figure: Yuyue medical blood glucose meter series products
In March this year, Yuyue Continuous Glucose Monitoring System (CGM) product - AnytimeCT3 officially obtained the registration certificate of Class III medical devices of the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA).
The success of Yuyue Medical is closely related to its research in the field of diabetes. Wang Lihua, Vice President of the Group, said that Yuyue has been working in the field of diabetes for more than 10 years, and providing monitoring and health management products for diabetic patients is one of Yuyue's core strategies.
Similarly, Lepu Medical is also studying in the field of geriatric cardiovascular diseases.
According to the "China Cardiovascular Health and Disease Report 2021", the incidence and mortality rate of cardiovascular diseases in mainland China ranked first, with rural and urban cardiovascular diseases accounting for 46.74% and 44.26% of the causes of death in 2019, respectively, and 2 out of every 5 deaths died of cardiovascular diseases.
Lepu Medical judged that aging will drive the company's cardiovascular products to develop for the better. Therefore, the company actively adjusted its business and product structure, and deployed a series of blockbuster products in the cardiovascular field to meet the diversified treatment needs of the elderly group.
By the end of 2022, the company and its subsidiaries had a total of 569 registration certificates for Class II and Class III medical device products, and the operating income of innovative cardiovascular implant products increased by 43.60% year-on-year.
Through the cases of Yuyue Medical and Lepu Medical, it can be seen that with the commercialization of innovative products, the company is expected to achieve sustained rapid revenue growth led by them.
Therefore, product research and development for specific geriatric diseases and continuous innovation and iteration will help the company stabilize customer sources and drive sustained growth.
3. Dig deep into the needs of the elderly, innovate products and marketing
Love the Internet, love shopping... These labels, which used to be unique to young people, are increasingly being shared by the post-60s "new old" group.
The post-60s generation, who is in the stage of active old people, has more ideas for high-quality life, and the new demand released by it has also ushered in new development opportunities for the elderly care equipment industry.
Previously, AgeClub mentioned in an article that 73% of pre-70s people have sleep problems. For many middle-aged and elderly people, it is difficult to get a good night's sleep.
In order to create comfortable sleeping conditions, the first thing that the elderly pay attention to is the choice of bedding. According to the survey, in order to improve sleep quality, 25.7% of the elderly choose to change bedding. Smart mattresses, latex pillows, duvets, in pursuit of a good night's sleep, they began to try a variety of bedding.
On the supply side, Qisheng Technology pays attention to the sleep problems of middle-aged and elderly people, and has launched a "black technology smart bed" that can improve the sleep conditions of the elderly.
Photo: Qisheng Technology official website
The smart bed can automatically adjust different angles and massage modes, suitable for various entertainment and leisure scenes, and also introduces the international leading German OKIN motor drive technology, with low noise and high durability, can create a quiet and comfortable sleeping environment for the elderly.
In addition to Qisheng Technology, AgeClub also paid attention to the fact that Rongjie Health Enterprise, which is famous for producing home saunas, expanded its industry to "healthy elderly care industry dominated by the pension market" in its 2022 annual report.
Source: Rongjie Health official website
Sauna is good for the health of the elderly. Studies have shown that proper sauna can help avoid common diseases of old age such as high blood pressure and dementia, in addition to reducing chronic pain.
Rongjie Health keenly captured this and matched it with the importance of the elderly to their health status, carried out key publicity, and achieved good revenue.
It can be seen that digging deep into the consumption vision and needs of the elderly, and carrying out targeted innovative products or marketing, is another idea for listed companies to layout the field of pension equipment.
PART 03
"Invest early and invest in small investment technology",
Intelligent digitalization is at the core
Among this year's financing events, the characteristics of intelligence and digitalization are particularly prominent:
In August, Metro completed the first round of tens of millions of financing for the research and development of smart home rehabilitation medical devices; In February, Zhuodao Medical completed a series B financing of hundreds of millions of yuan, which will be used to complete intelligent rehabilitation robots and rehabilitation solutions; In the same month, Jiuyi Medical completed an angel round of tens of millions of financing, committed to the research and development of smart hearing aids.
This is a positive sign for elderly home rehabilitation medical devices.
Since 2020, the central government has continued to introduce relevant policies to promote smart elderly care.
In early October, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Civil Affairs, the National Health Commission and other three departments jointly issued a notice to organize the pilot demonstration selection of smart health elderly care applications in 2023, which also regarded "health promotion and rehabilitation assistance training for the elderly" as a key pension scenario.
Under the policy dividend, the new round of financing of Hua Quejing and Jiuyi Medical reflects the good expectations of the capital market for the development prospects of smart elderly care devices.
Wisebot® X5, the core product of Hua Quejing, is an exoskeleton rehabilitation robot carefully designed for elderly patients with stroke hemiplegia based on rehabilitation theories such as neuroplasticity and mirror neurons.
Source: Hua Quejing Medical
The robot can simulate the movement law of human upper limbs in real time in multiple dimensions, not only provides active, passive and active and passive training modes, meeting the training needs of different rehabilitation periods, but also pioneers mirror training, which realizes the patient's independent determination of the training action of the affected side, which can significantly improve the rehabilitation effect and efficiency.
Jiuyi Medical Technology was established in Shenzhen in 2022, and in only one and a half years, it released three innovative products, JIUYEE Real Flagship Edition, Jiuyi Listening Inclusive Edition, and Dongfanghong Enhanced Edition, and laid out multiple domestic e-commerce platforms such as JD.com and Tmall online.
Source: Jiuyi Medical official website
Jiuyi's intelligent hearing aid products have accumulated a number of inventions and utility model patents, broken through various technical difficulties in algorithms, operating systems and chips, and created an original "one machine and three cores" system architecture, seamlessly opening up professional hearing aid chips, artificial intelligence chips, and high-end Bluetooth chips.
It is foreseeable that smart pension equipment products are the future investment and financing trend.
Under the favorable policies of the NDRC to guide the healthy development of the venture capital market and encourage enterprises to focus on supporting scientific and technological innovation, new entrants to the rehabilitation medical device can start from building core technical barriers and business model innovation to win the favor of "early investment and small investment in technology" capital.
PART 04
Extending from products to services,
Innovate business models
Looking at the development of the global medical device market, one of the biggest changes in recent years has been the transformation from a pure medical device manufacturer to a health management solution provider, from a single product sales to a "product + service" strategic upgrade.
Compared with the traditional single product, the significant feature of "product + service" is that the transaction cycle is extended, and the contact points and contact surfaces between enterprises and elderly customers are significantly increased, which can greatly improve the transaction opportunities, customer stickiness and profit growth space of enterprises.
In the process of transforming geriatric rehabilitation medical device enterprises from products to services, many excellent case samples have emerged. Among them, Long Zhijie is a prominent representative.
As a subsidiary of the listed company Chengyitong, Longzhijie is a comprehensive provider of rehabilitation medical equipment and elderly rehabilitation solutions.
Source: Long Zhijie official website
Since its establishment, Longzhijie has gradually completed the transformation from a single product sales to a service provider of overall rehabilitation solutions, providing high-quality and perfect overall solutions for elderly customers:
- Complete rehabilitation product line: At the beginning of its establishment, Longzhijie completed the accumulation of early customer resources and process technology with electromagnetic field therapy instrument, air wave pressure cycle therapy instrument and other products, and after years of development, R&D and production gradually became large-scale and systematic, and gradually formed a rich product line;
- Rehabilitation Specialty Solutions: Based on the actual clinical needs, Long Zhijie has launched specialized solutions for different diseases. Compared with single-device sales, specialized solutions are more targeted and can solve common diseases of the elderly in a "one-stop" manner;
- Overall rehabilitation solution: Compared with the traditional rehabilitation medical center construction mode, the overall solution is more targeted, the construction period is shorter, the after-sales service is more convenient and efficient, and it can respond to the needs of elderly users faster and better.
In the annual report, the company also said that it will continue to deeply grasp the "opportunities brought by the multi-dimensional layout", focus on the field of elderly health, actively expand service provision upward, extend equipment technology optimization downward, and provide intelligent manufacturing system solutions and products for elderly users with deep integration of industrialization and industrialization.
epilogue
In this article, AgeClub inventories the layout of domestic medical device companies in the field of elderly care since this year.
Based on the financing situation and consumption trends, AgeClub believes that in the future, elderly medical device related enterprises may be able to seize market opportunities and win capital favor in the following aspects:
1. Under the subdivision field, dig deep into the consumption vision and needs of the elderly, clarify customer positioning, and carry out targeted product innovation and marketing;
2. Starting from core technical barriers and business model innovation, attach importance to product intelligence and technology;
3. Create integrated solutions for products and services, extend to the cross-field service industry through product technology optimization, grasp the market opportunities of multi-directional layout, and expand the second growth curve.
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