China ramping up production of ventilators
March 31, 2020 Category Health, Weekly
Chinese ventilator manufacturers are ramping up efforts to supply countries ravaged by the novel coronavirus, while calling for a smoother and integrated global supply chain to guarantee production. “With demand for ventilators soaring all over the world, we’re short of components, from basic items like steel metal parts to imported parts,” Cui Gang, Clinical Director of Beijing Siriusmed Medical Device, told the Global Times. He said there are nearly 1,000 orders from overseas that the company’s manufacturing facility will fill by June, and certain domestic companies may have orders lasting until the fourth quarter of this year. However, insufficient supply of raw materials, especially core components, is the biggest problem that curtails production, Cui said. “We even use new ventilator products to trade for core components that are in tight supply,” Cui said. Other big manufacturers like Mindray and Beijing Aeonmed Co are also accelerating manufacturing amid surging overseas demand.
London-based analytics firm GlobalData estimated that about 880,000 more ventilators are in demand globally amid the epidemic, with the U.S. reporting a gap of 75,000 ventilators, while France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK are collectively short of 74,000 devices. In the U.S., Ford, General Motors and Tesla have responded to government calls to make ventilators, while the UK last week began to deliver ventilator blueprints to over 60 military engineering companies and car manufacturers including Rolls-Royce and Unipart. China’s Anhui Zhongding Sealing Parts Co announced it would supply precision premium rubber sealing parts for GM’s ventilator manufacturing project.
“Overseas ventilator orders have been soaring. The orders are mainly from Europe. In early March, we received an order for nearly 10,000 pieces of medical equipment, mainly ventilators and monitors, from Italy. The goods have already been shipped and we expect the entire order to be completed by the middle of April,” said May Li, Executive of medical equipment manufacturer Mindray. “The company has a relatively localized layout, such as in operations, sales, and after-sales, in the overseas markets. Only a small amount of our raw materials comes from overseas markets, which we have already sourced, and we have also found alternatives to them. In addition, with the increasing production capacity and the improvement of the situation in China, we see no problem in timely product deliveries,” Li said. Li Kai, Assistant to the Chairman of Beijing Aeonmed, an anesthesia and respiratory medical equipment enterprise, said: “Our plants are working around the clock to increase production capacity as we have received orders from several countries”. He added that earlier demand for ventilators, which are normally used in the intensive care units (ICUs) of hospitals, was not that high.
According to market research consultancy Wismar, the top five Chinese ventilator brands are Mindray, Aeonmed, Comen, Amoul and Superstar. During the first six months of last year, China exported respiratory medical equipment to 166 countries and regions, valued at USD360 million, up 8.41% on a yearly basis. Industry Expert Zhang Xun said that “Chinese enterprises have completed the transformation from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Created in China’ and become an integral part of the global respiratory product market,” the China Daily reports.
Xu Kemin, an official with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), said overseas demand for multifunction ventilators is surging, and manufacturers in China are toiling day and night to meet the growing demand. “China has 21 multifunction ventilator makers and eight of them have obtained the European Union’s compulsory CE marking,” Xu said. The companies have already signed contracts for 20,000 multifunction ventilators, and many more are pouring in every day. “Since March 19, these companies have provided more than 1,700 multifunction ventilators to overseas hospitals. That equals half of this year’s supplies to domestic hospitals,” Xu said, adding it was difficult to scale up production as some parts are imported from Europe.
Currently, top global ventilator manufacturers include Germany’s Dräger, Sweden’s Getinge Group and Switzerland’s Hamilton, while Chinese brands are in the low to medium range of the spectrum. However the performance of Chinese made ventilators has made progress, with leading domestic manufacturers like Mindray climbing to the second tier among all ventilator brands in the world, according to the Global Times.
China will also strive to maintain the stable domestic production of active pharmaceutical ingredients and ensure the security of the global supply chain. Having more than 1,500 production enterprises, China is the world’s largest producer and exporter of pharmaceutical ingredients with an annual output of around 3 million tons. Currently, more than 80% of China’s pharmaceutical ingredients production has resumed.
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