Investment Opportunities in China Medical Device Industry

Executive Summary

With the natural growth of the population and the inevitable trend of population aging, the demand in the healthcare industry will continue to rise. In addition, the improvement of people’s health consciousness, the upgrade of medical consumption and related favorable policies are the core factors driving the demand of China's medical device industry. Over the past five years, the global medical device market has maintained an annual growth rate of about 5%, while the growth rate of China's medical device market was more than 15%. It is expected that the gap between China and the global medical device market size would be gradually narrowed and China’s medical device market would play a more important role in the future. Therefore, the investment opportunities in China medical device market are very attractive and unmissable. On the other hand, with the promotion of the centralized procurement of high-value medical consumables nationwide, related medical device companies are facing pressure. So, how to find valuable investment targets that can avoid the influence of government's centralized procurement policy is important to investors. This Original mainly analyzed good investment opportunities, the industry characteristics, the investment rationale and the potential risks.

What’s Original?

We have identified the following investment opportunities in the Health Care Equipment and Services category in MSCI China:

• Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics (300760 CH): Mindray is the largest medical device and solution supplier in China. Its three core businesses are all in the forefront in China, and is also one of the few domestic companies that is truly capable of achieving import substitution and internationalization and could compete with overseas giants. Meanwhile, because of the Company's business layout, Mindray is not greatly affected by the centralized procurement policy in the short term. Together with the strategy of “innovation + M&A + internationalization”, Mindray has formed the high moat and become the industry benchmark.
• Ovctek China Inc (300595 CH): OVCTEK is the leading company in China orthokeratology lens market, with broad market prospect. Considering the high prosperity of the industry in which the Company is located, the good competition pattern, and the low penetration rate of orthokeratology lens, OVCTEK is expected to continue to maintain rapid growth in the future. Meanwhile, because the products have strong consumption attributes, OVCTEK’s business will not be affected by the centralized procurement policy. The obvious product performance advantage, the strong sales channel and the large market potential are the drivers for revenue and margins.
• Jafron Biomedical Co Ltd (300529 CH): JAFRON is the leading company in the field of hemoperfusion in China. As there are very limited competing products in the market, the Company is currently in a monopoly position of hemoperfusion cartridge, with strong pricing power and over 80% gross margin for more than five years. In addition, there is still a lot of room for growth in the hemoperfusion cartridge market, together with the strong product competitiveness, and the technical, raw material and channel advantages, JAFRON has established a high moat in this market.

The pecking order is: Mindray, OVCTEK and JAFRON.