From Low-Value Consumables to High-End Products: China's Medical Devices and Pharmaceuticals Enter a New Era of Global Expansion

Recently, Qilu Pharmaceutical and Thai purchasers reached a transaction agreement worth 12.3 million yuan, marking the first deal over ten million yuan on the China-ASEAN Regional Pharmaceutical Trading (Centralized Procurement) Platform in 2026. This cross-border pharmaceutical trading platform, established just a year ago, has already delivered impressive results at the start of the new year.

"Currently, the global health industry is accelerating its upgrade, and Chinese pharmaceuticals and medical devices have become an important growth driver for our foreign trade and economic cooperation." On January 17th, at the symposium on supporting the "going-out" of Chinese pharmaceuticals and medical devices through the medical insurance drug and device (centralized procurement) trading and pricing platform, Yang Hao, a second-level inspector from the Department of Outward Investment and Economic Cooperation of the Ministry of Commerce, said.

Data shows that in 2024, the total import and export value of pharmaceutical products in China was $199.38 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2.1%, of which exports increased by 5.9% year-on-year, and imports decreased by 2% year-on-year.China MedicineThe import and export structure of related products is also continuously optimized. Yang Hao explained, "Moving from a traditional phase dominated by low-value consumables to a new phase dominated by high-end products."

In 2025, 76 innovative drugs were approved for marketing in China.Innovative HealthcareThere are 76 types of medical devices, ranking first globally. Among them, the development of first-in-class drugs with entirely new therapeutic mechanisms is the most challenging. By 2025, China will have approved 11 first-in-class drugs for marketing, four of which were independently developed in China.

At the same time, in 2025, the total amount of China's innovative drug out-licensing transactions exceeded 130 billion US dollars, with the number of transactions breaking through 150, far surpassing the 51.9 billion US dollars and 94 transactions in the whole year of 2024. Zhou Le, Deputy Director of the Drug Supervision Department of the National Medical Products Administration, said at the symposium that China's innovative drugs have stood at the core position on the global map.

In addition to innovative drugs, the autonomous control of high-end medical equipment is also a strategic need to ensure people's health and achieve technological self-reliance and strength. In recent years, China's medical equipment exports have covered more than 9,000 medical institutions across over 190 countries and regions worldwide.

Yifan PharmaceuticalPresident Wang Feng said that for China's innovative drugs, going global is not an option but a necessary path for survival and upgrading. This is because 90% of the costs in pharmaceutical innovation are upfront, with high failure rates, making it difficult for a single market to bear the risks of innovation. To help companies navigate this essential journey, the "15th Five-Year Plan" proposal suggests "supporting the development of innovative drugs and medical devices" and "expanding high-level opening up to create new opportunities for win-win cooperation."

Reporters learned from the meeting that in 2025, the China Export Credit Insurance Corporation supported the export of the biomedical industry chain with a coverage amount of $25.46 billion, increasing by 5.4% year-on-year. Wang Shu, Deputy General Manager of the company's Business Management Department, introduced that while the export scale was expanding, the risks in the biomedical industry chain were growing, and the loss reporting and compensation indicators had significantly increased.

The pharmaceutical industry is a heavily regulated field, with significant differences in regulations across countries, high technical barriers, and low market error tolerance. Wang Feng said that going global does not simply mean selling in a few more countries; rather, it involves systemic challenges such as multiple currencies, multiple tax zones, and multiple regulatory systems. If a company’s globalization strategy remains stuck in single-market logic, risks often concentrate and explode after two or three years.

Nurotron, which produces cochlear implants, has nearly 10 years of overseas experience. Wang Sheng, a relevant person in charge of Nurotron's marketing department, told reporters: "We really hope that relevant national departments can lead us 'going global.' In fact, the quality of many products from Chinese enterprises is very good, but when it comes to communication with foreign government departments, companies are very weak."

Currently, multiple departments are working together to reduce the risks for companies going global. The commerce department is taking the lead in building a service platform that covers the entire process from pre-launch to post-launch operations, enabling one-stop online processing for resource matchmaking. It has also released investment guides covering over 170 countries and risk assessment reports for 120 countries, optimizing the business environment for Chinese companies overseas. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) is accelerating the widespread application of digital technology in the pharmaceutical field and establishing a cooperation platform for the pharmaceutical industries of countries involved in the joint construction of the "Belt and Road."

As a key infrastructure for building an international pricing system, the "China Drug Price Registration System," which will go online in December 2025, provides pharmaceutical price registration and inquiry services for enterprises. On January 13 this year, the system issued the first overseas version of a drug price certificate, establishing an international pricing benchmark for Chinese drugs and filling a gap in this field.

At the same time, regional platforms are making efforts in multiple areas. The China-ASEAN Regional Pharmaceutical Trading (Centralized Procurement) Platform has attracted 224 pharmaceutical companies in China to settle in and successfully assisted 53 medical devices from 16 companies in registering and going public in Vietnam. Since its launch, the China-Central Asia "Central Pharmacy" located in Xinjiang has attracted 96 traditional Chinese medicine enterprises to settle in, facilitating transactions worth over 125 million yuan.

In addition, the Tianjin Medical Insurance Bureau, relying on the National Organization's Joint Procurement Platform for Medical Consumables, is preparing to establish the "China International Medical Device and Equipment Trading (Centralized Procurement) Platform" along with a market-oriented operational working body. This aims to promote medical devices and equipment from being "globally purchased" in Tianjin to being "globally sold." Wu Gang, Director of the Office of the Tianjin Medical Insurance Bureau, stated at a symposium that the platform is scheduled to go online in early February this year.

Source: China Youth Daily