Beijing, China – The 11th edition of the Health China Forum ("the Forum") jointly organized by People's Daily Online and Health Times took place in Beijing, China on January 8. The Firehawk® Rapamycin Target Eluting Coronary Stent System ("Firehawk®") and Rega® Family Implantable Pacemakers, both of which are products of Shanghai MicroPort Medical (Group) Co., Ltd. ("MicroPort®"), made the list of Health China (2018) • Top 10 Medical Devices.
The Forum is the oldest, most influential, highest quality and most authoritative event for China's pharmaceutical and healthcare communities among its likes that revolve around the theme of Health China. During this year's Forum under the theme of "Grand Framework, Grand Convergence", a few topics were discussed, including national healthcare policies, rare diseases therapy, development and inheritance of Chinese Medicine, and Internet plus Pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, following the guideline of "Health Promotion, Social Responsibility, News Media Standpoint", the Forum announced the Health China (2018) • Top 10 Medical Devices in accordance with the criteria of industry status, technological innovation, clinical effectiveness, and public attention.
The revolutionary third-generation drug-eluting stent Firehawk® is the result of eight years of research and development of MicroPort®, and it is a successfully commercialized drug-eluting stent featuring strut in-groove coating and precision target drug-releasing patent technology. Firehawk® adopts unique abluminal laser cut grooves coating design and target-eluting technology, combining the merits of the bare metal stent and drug-eluting stent, which allows Firehawk® to achieve the same clinical efficacy with significantly lower drug loading. In September 2018, the results of the Firehawk® TARGET AC European trial were published on the website of the world leading medical journal the Lancet. This is the first time that clinical data from a China manufactured drug eluting stent has been published in the Lancet since its first publication nearly 200 years ago. The radical innovation of Firehawk® can significantly shorten the dual antiplatelet therapy after the PCI procedure to cut hundreds of millions of yuan in the national healthcare expenditure.
The Rega® Family Implantable Pacemakers consist of three series and eight models of products, featuring the unique sleep apnea screening and the advanced SafeR™ physiological pacing therapy. Measuring only 8 cubic centimeters, the products are about 70% of the imported pacemakers in size and more suitable for the relatively thin physique of the Chinese patients. The service life of the products spans 10 to 12 years, while the prices are only 70% to 80% of those of the imported products. The inception of the Rega® Family Implantable Pacemakers ended the dominance of the imported products in the Chinese pacemaker market in the previous years. It also kicks off the new quest where China's high-end medical devices, such as the pacemakers, will be manufactured domestically on an industrial scale, accelerating the import substitution. In November 2018, the Rega® Implantable Pacemakers were exhibited at a national exhibition commemorating the 40th anniversary of China's Reform and Opening-up.
Thus far, MicroPort® has released about 300 products to the market and MicroPort® products have entered over 8,000 hospitals globally, covering Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Americas. We estimate that every 12 seconds a patient is being implanted with a MicroPort® manufactured device to save a life, improve the quality of a life, or create a new life. The entries of Firehawk® and Rega® Family Implantable Pacemakers into the Health China (2018) • Top 10 Medical Devices fully demonstrated that the public has highly recognized the products and brand of MicroPort®. In the future, MicroPort® will step up the building of a new technological innovation system that is market-oriented and combines the industry, academia and researchers, and create more of the new products with self-owned intellectual property. MicroPort® will elevate its competitiveness to help promote the development of China's high-end medical device industry.