Chinese Medical Consumables Leader Spends $120M to Acquire Majority Stake in U.S. Peer GRI

On September 23, Winner Medical announced that it would acquire a 75% equity stake in Global Resources International (GRI) for $120 million (approximately RMB 850 million) in cash, aiming to create a one-stop global solution for medical consumables.

GRI was founded in the United States in 2000. It is a global enterprise specializing in medical consumables and industrial protective products, with revenues exceeding USD 150 million in 2023. The company operates production facilities totaling over 80,000 square meters and warehousing facilities exceeding 70,000 square meters worldwide, with its core business primarily distributed across the United States and Europe.

GRI possesses an independent R&D team and advanced technologies for the research, development, production, and processing of water-soluble degradable protective materials, which complement Winner Medical’s technological innovation and R&D expertise. Through this acquisition, Winner Medical will also establish a comprehensive localized operational system in the United States and Europe, continuing to expand its overseas market for medical consumables.

In recent years, Winner Medical has not been content with merely being the leading domestic enterprise in low-value medical consumables; it has also been expanding into the high-value consumables market through organic growth and external mergers and acquisitions.

First, actively promote industry-university-research collaboration, collaborating with universities and research institutions such as Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan Textile University, Southern University of Science and Technology, Tianjin Polytechnic University, and Jiangnan University to continuously advance forward-looking research in areas like cotton genetic breeding and artificial blood vessels, thereby promoting the commercialization of scientific and technological achievements.

In November 2023, Winner Medical collaborated with Southern University of Science and Technology to launch a bionic artificial cornea project, successfully securing approval as a Key Scientific and Technological Breakthrough Project in Shenzhen. This initiative marked an entry into the research and development of high-value-added medical bionic implant materials, thereby expanding the application scope of collagen. The project also received RMB 8 million in special scientific and technological funding.

Prior to this, Winner Medical achieved the commercialization of three scientific and technological achievements in collaboration with Wuhan Textile University: green and environmentally friendly degumming and bleaching technology for cotton fibers and their products, key technologies and industrialization pre-research for Bletilla striata polysaccharide dressings, and research on artificial blood vessels.

In June 2023, a prototype artificial blood vessel developed through a collaboration between Winner Medical and Wuhan Textile University was unveiled. Most surprisingly, it is woven from synthetic fibers.

A team led by Academician Xu Weilin of Wuhan Textile University has creatively utilized elastic fiber materials to mimic the three-layer structure of human blood vessels, developing a highly bionic artificial vessel that replicates the structural and functional characteristics of native human vasculature. This product is a spiral corrugated tubular fabric capable of expansion, contraction, and bending. The project has already been implemented in Hubei Province, where a standardized R&D and production base has been established, with the potential to achieve domestic substitution within three years.

Secondly, Winner Medical has also rapidly expanded its product portfolio of medical consumables through acquisitions.In 2022, Winner Medical spent over RMB 1.8 billion within two months to consecutively acquire three companies—Longtai Medical, Hunan Ping’an Medical Devices, and Guilin Latex—thereby expanding its business footprint into the fields of high-end wound dressings, injection and puncture devices, and latex products.

In addition, Winner Medical is also actively exploring overseas markets.According to Winner Medical’s 2024 semi-annual report, the company generated RMB 790 million in revenue from overseas markets in the first half of the year, representing a year-on-year increase of 14.1%. Meanwhile, Winner Medical has designated 2024 as its “New Era,” with plans to further deepen its international market presence, placing particular emphasis on the Southeast Asian market. The acquisition of GRI is also a significant step in Winner Medical’s accelerated global expansion.

An analysis of Winner Medical’s operations reveals that its initiatives for overseas expansion and business upgrading bear a striking resemblance to Blue Sail Medical’s acquisition of Biosensors International.

Likewise starting out with low-value consumables such as health-protection gloves, Blue Sail Medical acquired Biosensors International, the world’s fourth-largest R&D, manufacturing, and sales service provider of coronary stents, in 2018. This move not only enabled the company to transition from low-value consumables to high-value medical devices, but also provided it with an international platform with expansion capabilities.

In a similar vein, on September 19, Nanwei Medical, a leading Chinese endoscopy company, also accelerated its global expansion by acquiring overseas peer Creo Medical, thereby rapidly enhancing its overseas market operations system.

Not stopping there, MicroPort Endovascular acquired the European medical device company Optimum Medical for $65 million in July, designating its subsidiary Lombard Medical as the business hub for the European market. In April, orthopedic consumables manufacturer Allgens Medical acquired the German high-end implant manufacturer HT Dental for €32.46 billion, thereby gaining market channels and sales networks in Europe, the United States, Mexico, Malaysia, and other regions.

Looking back, innovative medical companies such as Juyi Medical, Mindray Medical, Vobi Medical, Lainuo Medical, MicroPort Medical, and Tianying Medical have all increased their investments in the European market through acquisitions, with targets covering high-end medical device sectors including neurointervention, endoscopy, ECMO, and dental lasers.

Acquiring companies in target markets to gain access to their existing production capacity, technology, distribution channels, and other resources is one of the key models for the internationalization of medical device companies.Commonly seen in the medical device and high-value consumables sectors. This model enables rapid product manufacturing and channel sales, with a relatively high degree of autonomous decision-making for enterprises; however, it also entails high acquisition costs and challenges related to market access.

In addition to the M&A model, internationalization models for medical devices also include OEM/ODM, distributor, and self-built models.

Under the OEM/ODM model, Chinese companies are responsible for the design and manufacturing of medical devices, with products sold overseas under other companies’ brands. This “private-label” approach is commonly applied in the field of low-value consumables. This was previously the primary mode of international expansion for Winner Medical, which is now launching its own branded global presence through “Purcotton.”

Under the distributor model, domestic manufacturers collaborate with local enterprises in overseas markets, where the overseas entities handle medical device product registration and hold the licenses. This approach is common in the fields of low-value consumables and in vitro diagnostics (IVD). For instance, Jet Biofil has general agents or distributors in more than 40 countries worldwide, including the United States and Japan, to sell products such as biological laboratory consumables on its behalf. While this model enables rapid coverage of target markets with relatively low market access costs and risks, it results in weaker market control and brand image management capabilities, and the sharing of profits with distributors reduces overall profitability.

Medical equipment and high-value consumables sectors predominantly adopt the self-built model.This model involves enterprises establishing subsidiaries, representative offices, R&D centers, and production bases overseas. It requires companies to have a deep understanding of local market policies, regulations, business environments, and industry dynamics, while also rigorously testing their financial strength, supply chain and logistics infrastructure, organizational management capabilities, and cultural adaptability.

Mindray Medical is a typical example of this model. Mindray Medical has established subsidiaries, offices, and R&D centers in the United States, gradually building a localized operational system covering planning, research and development, and registration. By collaborating with the four major U.S. group purchasing organizations, it has extended its product reach to approximately two-thirds of hospitals nationwide.

Over the past three decades, China’s medical device industry has experienced rapid growth, significantly increasing the market share of domestic products. Driven by factors such as the implementation of centralized volume-based procurement and Diagnosis-Related Group (DRG) payment policies, along with industrial cycle fluctuations, expanding into new markets and establishing a global presence have become imperative for Chinese medical device companies. Meanwhile, the nature of Chinese medical device exports is evolving: while low-value consumables previously dominated, the export growth rate of high-value medical devices has accelerated in recent years. The frequent emergence of domestically developed technologies is reshaping the landscape of innovation in the global healthcare industry.