Is there money to be made in pet medical equipment?

Pet medical equipment in the past few years, relying on the United States with the entry of Myriad, earned enough outside eyes and expectations.

Pet medical equipment does not have a special definition, in China, medical equipment is divided into human use and animal use. One of the animal medical equipment is generally referred to as "Veterinary Medical Devices", which is translated from the term "Veterinary Medical Devices" in foreign professional literature. Since veterinary medical devices and human medical devices are the closest, many countries in the world have legislated both together. In Japan, for example, medical devices are defined as an instrument or apparatus used for diagnosing, treating or preventing various diseases in human beings or animals, or used to affect the structure or function of the human body or animal body. Medical devices for both humans and animals are subject to the provisions of the Pharmaceutical Affairs Law of Japan, while the regulatory system is divided into different industry sectors, with the supervision and management of medical devices under the sole responsibility of the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, and those involving veterinary drugs and veterinary instruments managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. China has not legislated medical devices for human use together with veterinary instruments, and until now, there is still no precise definition of veterinary instruments in China, and the connotation and extension of veterinary instruments are still relatively ambiguous, in addition, the management system and regulatory system are still in a blank, which needs to be filled urgently.

01 Regulatory system needs to be improved when the veterinary instrument regulations introduced

In China, the veterinary equipment industry management system lags behind the veterinary drugs, veterinary drugs regulations issued in 2004, before and after the three revisions, and China's veterinary equipment management, supervision and management of the system is still not established.

In terms of regulations, in November 2004, the Ministry of Agriculture, Veterinary Bureau of Pharmaceutical Affairs issued the "veterinary instrument management regulations (draft)", but so far there is still no formal regulations issued. The draft proposes that the State Council's administrative department of animal husbandry and veterinary medicine is responsible for the management of veterinary instruments throughout the country, and the administrative department of animal husbandry and veterinary medicine of the local people's governments above the county level is responsible for the management of veterinary instruments in their own jurisdictions. The Classification Catalogue of Veterinary Instruments was issued by the State Council administrative department of animal husbandry and veterinary medicine. From the opinion draft at the time, it can be seen that the State Council will serve as a co-ordinated solution to the supervision and regulation of veterinary instruments, the 2021 version of the Animal Disease Prevention Law added a new paragraph of the regulations, once again clear that the management of veterinary drugs and veterinary instruments is stipulated by the State Council, but how to co-ordinate the problem of regulatory gaps, when to carry out is still not conclusive.

Veterinary instrument industry standardisation is a comprehensive basic work of the animal husbandry and veterinary industry, is the organisation of the production of veterinary instruments, quality monitoring and technical supervision based on a total of 27 veterinary instruments related to agricultural industry standards in China, mainly surgical instruments and consumables, enacted in January 2002 to December 2009, nearly 10 years without revisions or new standards came out.

At present, under the Bureau of Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Medicine of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the Department of Pharmaceutical Affairs and Pharmaceutical Instruments is the only administrative department of veterinary instruments in China, and the Veterinary Instrument Testing Office of the China Veterinary Drug Inspection Institute is the technical support organisation for it, and there is no specialised veterinary instrument organisation set up in the various provinces.

In the field of veterinary instruments, no matter the management system, quality monitoring system or other third-party institutions are still very weak, which is not conducive to the development of industrialisation of veterinary instruments.

02 Kryptonite Era Pet Medical Devices Welcome New Opportunities

According to China Pet Industry White Paper 2021, pet staple food remains the largest submarket in the pet consumption field, with a market size of RMB 89.1 billion, accounting for 35.8%, while pet diagnosis and treatment has become the second largest market in the pet consumption field after pet staple food, with a market size of RMB 36.4 billion, accounting for 14.6%. Pet hospitals as the core link of the diagnosis and treatment industry, the number has been increasing in recent years, according to statistics, as of January 2021, the number of China's pet hospitals has reached 31,000. Compared with February 2020, nearly 8,000 new pet hospitals, the increase in the number of pet hospitals will also bring the strong demand for upstream equipment.

At present, the pet medical equipment is mainly concentrated in medical imaging, in vitro diagnostics two major directions, and most of them are based on the principle of human equipment to transform and extend to the pet field. In the pet diagnosis and treatment into the high-end competition, pet medical imaging products have become an important resource for pet hospitals to attract customers, many high-end hospitals have purchased 64-row CT, 1.5T MRI, etc., the demand for pet medical imaging equipment continues to increase, the market potential is considerable.

Due to the development of pet equipment in China lagged behind developed countries in the West, the current high-end imaging equipment is mainly based on imported products, in recent years, innovative imaging equipment companies such as Myriad, Lianshang, represented by domestic enterprises began to make efforts to pet medical equipment.

According to incomplete statistics, the current layout of the pet medical equipment field of enterprises are Myriad, Union shadow, Yirui technology, Wanfu biological and so on. Myriad medical in 2020 at a cost of 200 million yuan to set up the "Shenzhen Myriad Animal Medical Technology Co., Ltd.", has launched a veterinary anaesthesia machine, veterinary blood cell analyser, veterinary monitors, veterinary ultrasound and other products. Yirui technology is mainly layout layout high-end static detector, zhongcheng digital science data show, Yirui technology approved product number of 12, are detector products, mainly used in general release, oral and veterinary fields, its pet medical X-ray detector in 2019 market share of 12.91%. Wanfu biological product line includes animal immunofluorescence platform, animal instant coagulation platform, animal blood gas electrolyte platform, bio-intelligent detection platform; Xiangsheng medical force in the field of animal ultrasound, launched a variety of veterinary ultrasound, covering the desktop colour ultrasound, portable colour ultrasound and palm ultrasound full range of ultrasound.

Due to the accumulation of advanced technology in human medical devices for many years, the traditional mechanical enterprises into the pet medical equipment has a natural advantage, but in a hail of praise, still need to recognise the lack of basic industry management and regulatory system, the development of the pet medical equipment industry is still suffering a lot of difficulties.