MicroPort Medical Breaks Import Monopoly and Accelerates Domestic Substitution with Innovative Medical Devices

■ By Our Reporter, Yang Zhenying

Starting from the earliest balloon catheters, followed by bare-metal stents, and advancing to the latest targeted drug-eluting stents, Shanghai MicroPort Medical (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "MicroPort"), headquartered in Pudong, has evolved over 20 years into a multinational medical device group with dozens of physical subsidiaries and approximately 300 marketed products. Statistical data shows that by the end of 2018, MicroPort's products had entered more than 8,000 hospitals worldwide, covering major regions including Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Americas. Globally, a MicroPort product is used to save a patient's life every 12 seconds on average.

Let “Chinese Innovation” Demonstrate Its “Visibility” on the Global Stage

Minimally Invasive Medical TechnologyMinimally invasive medical technology is a modern healthcare approach that delivers therapeutic devices to lesion sites within the body through a tiny incision in the skin under imaging guidance, enabling treatment and even complete eradication of the lesions. Today, patients both in China and abroad are widely aware of and benefiting from the various advantages this technology offers. However, at the inception of MicroPort, the annual volume of cardiac interventional procedures in China was merely 5,000 cases. As procedural costs were several times higher than those in Europe and the United States, the vast majority of Chinese patients were deterred from undergoing these procedures, forcing them to opt for surgical alternatives with higher risk profiles.

As the first domestic enterprise dedicated to the research and development of interventional medical devices, MicroPort has spearheaded the development of China’s interventional medical device industry, driving the promotion and widespread adoption of interventional therapies across the country. The first domestically produced balloon catheter, the first bare-metal stent, the first drug-eluting stent, the first targeted drug-eluting stent… Over the past two decades, MicroPort has developed a series of innovative products that achieved “firsts in China” or even “global firsts and uniques,” bringing significant visibility to “Chinese Innovation” on the global stage. Thanks to the continuous innovation by domestic cardiac stent manufacturers led by MicroPort, competing imported foreign products have been forced to reduce their prices. Currently, more than 750,000 Chinese patients with coronary heart disease benefit from these treatments each year, and the number of patients able to access such advanced medical technologies continues to grow rapidly.

Chang Zhaohua, founder, chairman, and CEO of MicroPort, once stated that “innovation” has permeated the company’s 20-year development journey. From its humble beginnings to its current growth and expansion, MicroPort has consistently engaged in deep reflection on how to transition innovation in the medical device sector from a “realm of chance” to a “realm of necessity,” and gradually from the “realm of necessity” into the “realm of freedom” in research and development.

Statistical data shows that MicroPort has received five National Science and Technology Progress Awards over the past decade, with nearly 3,500 Chinese and foreign patents applied for or granted. In September 2018, The Lancet, a world-renowned authoritative medical journal, published in full the results of a large-scale European clinical trial on MicroPort’s independently developed Firehawk Targeted Sirolimus-Eluting Coronary Stent System (hereinafter referred to as the “Firehawk Stent”). The journal stated that this study resolved a major challenge that had plagued the field of cardiovascular intervention worldwide for more than a decade. This marked the first appearance of a Chinese medical device in The Lancet since its inception nearly 200 years ago, signifying that the Firehawk Stent, entirely independently researched, developed, and manufactured by MicroPort, has become a leader in setting new global standards for the next generation of coronary stents.

Multiple Fields

Joining the Ranks of Global Leaders

It is not only coronary drug-eluting stents that have earned the MicroPort brand respect both domestically and internationally. Its distinctive products, including artificial hip joints, artificial knee joints, cerebrovascular covered stents, large-artery vascular stents, cardiac pacemakers, implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), prosthetic heart valves, and the “artificial hypothalamus” for treating infertility associated with Kallmann syndrome, are all recognized and highly regarded worldwide. Currently, MicroPort ranks among the top five globally in market share across several specialized fields, including interventional treatment of coronary artery disease, orthopedic joints, cardiac rhythm management, and endovascular treatment of large arteries. (Continued on Page 2) (Continued from Page 1)

While continuously expanding its product portfolio, MicroPort has vigorously advanced its globalization strategy in recent years, leveraging an “outbound” approach to elevate its technological capabilities and maximize its core competitiveness. “This ‘going global’ strategic layout has transformed the company’s precarious situation of excessive reliance on the Chinese market—akin to supporting a tall building with a single pillar. It has not only facilitated MicroPort’s integration into the high-end international medical device industry but also increased its overall scale,” said Chang Zhaohua.

Today, through a series of global operational initiatives, MicroPort has not only achieved multiple global breakthroughs in the market launch and clinical research of coronary stents but has also entered the ranks of global industry leaders in various fields, including joint reconstruction and cardiac rhythm management. The company has established production (R&D) bases in Shanghai, Suzhou, Jiaxing, and Dongguan in China, as well as in Memphis (USA), the suburbs of Paris (France), and the suburbs of Milan (Italy), forming a global network for R&D, manufacturing, marketing, and services.

MicroPort, a native enterprise of Pudong, has grown over the past 20 years into an international company with emerging global influence. Its share of international revenue has risen from 5% to approximately 55%, with products covering major markets worldwide. The number of patent applications filed annually has multiplied, product development cycles have been significantly shortened, and the speed of translating research achievements into practical applications has markedly improved. The rate of product launches has increased from a few per year to dozens per year.

The company stated that it hopes medical technologies representing the highest level of global technological advancement can bring health and longevity to every corner of the world, every community, every family, and every patient in the fairest manner possible.

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