TCT Medical Offers A New Model For Device Distribution In China

Medical device companies are wrestling with health care reform in US markets, and its potential to dampen both innovation and existing device markets. Europe used to offer easy markets to device companies, but opportunity there appears to be drying up also as Europe begins to mount higher hurdles to reimbursement. ( See " European Cost Concerns May Impact Devices," IN VIVO , July/August 2010 Also see "European Cost Concerns May Impact Devices" - In Vivo, 1 July, 2010..) But somewhere in the world, there is a land where the dynamics are in place to foster, not stymie, growth in medtech product industries. Today, China has become especially enticing as an unpenetrated, gigantic health care market, especially since the government in 2009 signed into effect a health care reform bill promising $125 billion over a three-year period to modernize the infrastructure of health care and provide insurance coverage to hundreds of millions of people. Medical device companies look to China as an enormous and rapidly growing market for medical disposables and equipment.

However, the complex nature of the distribution infrastructure in China will make it difficult for companies to get a foothold. Headquartered in Beijing, TCT MedicalInc., which recently received $10 million...