In the past, the advent of plastics was hailed as a major breakthrough in engineering materials science in the 20th century. Since then, plastics, a new, inexpensive material have replaced traditional materials such as steel, glass, rubber, and wood, and have been widely used in the production of daily necessities, agricultural products (such as plastic film, etc.), mechanical parts, packaging materials, and even aircraft/ Satellite components and so on. Since the 1980s, plastics have quietly entered the field of medical products. From plastic ampoules, plastic infusion/infusion bottles, infusion/blood transfusion bags, disposable syringes, plastic bottle/poison bottles, plastic aerosolizers/dry powder inhalers, to hospitals, large-scale diagnostic instruments and medical trays, all plastic products . In the West, even some surgical instruments have been converted to engineering plastics. Medical plastic products have become the fastest growing medical device product.
In the next 10 years, the production of medical plastic products will become a promising new industrial industry. This is because with the continuous growth of China's national economy, per capita national income will continue to increase, and the ranks of the middle class will continue to expand. On the other hand, China has begun to enter an aging society. The elderly population in China has a large base. Its medical needs far exceed that of the middle-aged and young people. Therefore, medical plastic products will become a new hot spot for growth in China's medical device market. In 2005, the medical plastics market in China was approximately 12 to 15 billion yuan. According to the prediction of experts, during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan†period, China's medical plastic product market is expected to reach a new high of 20 billion to 25 billion yuan.
Application of Foreign Plastic Products in Medical Field
As far as the international market is concerned, US medical plastic products account for about 51% of the world's medical plastics market, Germany 15%, Europe (including Germany) 24%, and the Asia Pacific region 20%. At present, there are as many as one or twenty kinds of plastic raw materials used for making medical equipment/sanitary products, but the following are the most commonly used ones: 1. Polyvinyl chloride (PVC) accounts for 28%; 2. Polyethylene (PE) , accounting for 24%; 3, polystyrene, accounting for 18%; 4, polypropylene (PP), accounting for 16%; 5, dimethyl terephthalate (PET), accounting for 5%. Making special medical device products (especially implanted medical devices that require high product fastness, flexibility, and biocompatibility, such as pacemakers, ventricular defibrillators, artificial joints, biochips, etc.) It requires the use of engineering plastics that are not susceptible to oxidative degradation, including ABS/SAN, Teflon (Teflon), TPE, and polycarbonate. In recent years, high-priced, high-performance engineering plastics have accounted for 14% of the total sales of the medical plastics market.
Because of its good flexibility, wide application range, large output, and low price, polyvinyl chloride is widely used in the production of medical plastic products. However, during the course of use, people found that PVC also has certain defects. For example, when PVC encounters an acidic medium, it will dissolve plastic additives such as plasticizers. Scientists have found that medical plastic products made from polypropylene (PP) or polyethylene (PE) do not react with the liquid medium they contain, so they are safer for humans. Since then, PP and PE have developed rapidly in the production of disposable medical bags such as disposable infusion bags/blood transfusion bags, infusion bottles (sets), medical irrigators and other commonly used medical products, with an annual growth rate of more than 10%. The lightweight polystyrene has replaced PVC in the production of medical instrument packaging or cushions.
Plastics have already established the advantage that other materials cannot be replaced on the packaging of pharmaceuticals. Such as people's habits of tablets "fish eye bubble" blister packaging is a clever combination of aluminum foil and polypropylene transparent hard film, it is not only beautiful appearance, you can see at a glance inside the transparent plastic film shape of the tablet, but also has a certain degree of fastness, Long-distance transport. The “fish eye bubble†blister packaging is not easy to damage or absorb moisture, so the “fish eye bubble†has become the most common form of pharmaceutical packaging in the international pharmaceutical market. The “fish eye bubble†pills (or capsules) that are produced and sold every year in the world ) Up to hundreds of billions of boards.
It is worth noting that some new thermoplastic engineering plastics newly developed abroad have begun to enter the field of medical plastics, including polycarbonate developed by Germany (its transparency is high), polyether ketone and polysulfone, and so on.
These new plastic materials are suitable for the production of medical equipment such as X-ray imagers, electronic medical devices, and surgical instruments. Some people predict that in the next few years, new materials will account for at least 10% to 12% of the share in medical plastics.
Tray specially designed for holding surgical instruments or other medical supplies is extremely popular in hospitals. The former trays were made of enamel, which was not only heavy, expensive, but also difficult to completely disinfect. Since the listing of plastic trays, hospitals around the world have used plastic trays instead of traditional enamel trays. For example, plastic trays that can be reused after routine disinfection in the United States will have sales of US$476 million this year. Since plastics are produced using the “injection molding†process, they can be designed as multi-space, multi-purpose medical trays (which are convenient for storage of different medical supplies). This product is superior in performance to conventional non-spaced enamel trays. It is expected that the rate of growth of this easily sterilized multi-space, multi-purpose plastic pallet will be as high as 10%.
Medical plastic bottles (such as eye drops, pill bottles, ampules, infusion bottles, etc.) are also a kind of large-scale medical plastic products that grow faster. According to relevant estimates, the annual growth rate of medical plastic bottles in the United States is 3.6%. The total sales of medical plastic bottles in the United States will exceed 130 million U.S. dollars this year. In the United States and other developed countries, medical plastic bottles are mostly made of high-density polyethylene because they have good impact resistance, high strength, and a certain degree of flexibility, and more importantly, the price is very cheap. This makes sense for reducing the cost of medical plastic products.
Pre-filled syringes are also machined from high-density polyethylene (or polypropylene) materials. Since pre-filled syringes can be widely used for syringes from insulin, human growth hormone, EPO (erythropoietin) to various other medicines, it is very convenient for patients to carry and use, so it was predicted that pre-filled (plastic) syringes will It has become the most popular new type of medical product in the international market in the 21st century. In the United States alone, sales of pre-filled plastic syringes will reach 215 million U.S. dollars this year. Together with other western countries and the Asia-Pacific region, the annual sales of pre-filled plastic syringes are expected to reach 500 million to 600 million U.S. dollars. .
Medical plastics are not only used to make bulk products (such as infusion bags, syringes, and pharmaceutical packaging, etc.), but they are also the main raw materials for certain important implanted devices. According to foreign reports, a U.S. company has developed a "prosthetic valve" that can replace damaged heart valves. It is made of high-end engineering plastics such as ABS-polycarbonate. The "prosthetic valve" is only 1/8 inch in size. Although it is very small, it can tolerate the powerful impact of the heart pump's blood flow and close the tight seam to prevent blood from flowing back to the ventricle. The invention of the artificial plastic valve brought good news to many serious heart patients.
The development of medical plastics in China
China's medical plastic products started late. Compared with the United States, Germany, Japan and other developed countries, China's medical plastics industry is still in its infancy, and its overall technical level lags far behind its western counterparts. For example, the high-purity medical polypropylene raw materials needed for making infusion bags and blood transfusion bags still need to be imported from Germany and other western countries. As for some high-end medical plastic products (such as artificial valves, artificial plastic blood vessels, artificial joints, etc.) China is still exploring, and has not yet formed a formal production. At present, China's largest production and sales of medical plastic products are all high-tech goods, such as disposable syringes, infusion/blood transfusion bags, infusion bottles (sets) and a variety of plastic pharmaceutical packaging (such as bottles, ampoules , aluminum plastic composite materials, etc.). According to the estimates of the Medical Chamber of Commerce, the total output value of medical plastic products in China is only 2% to 3% of the global market for medical plastic products, and per capita annual consumption of medical plastic products is less than RMB 50, which is in line with China’s huge population of 1.3 billion people. Very disproportionate. In contrast, Americans spend more than US$160 per year on medical plastic products.
Industry insiders believe that the production of medical plastic products will become a promising new industrial industry in the next 10 years. This is because with the continuous growth of China's national economy, per capita national income will continue to increase, and the ranks of the middle class will continue to expand.
On the other hand, China has begun to enter an aging society. The elderly people in China have a large number of bases and their medical needs far exceed that of the middle-aged and young people. Therefore, medical plastic products will become a new hot spot in the medical device market in China. In 2005, the medical plastics market in China was approximately 12 to 15 billion yuan. According to the prediction of experts, during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan†period, China’s medical plastic product market is expected to reach a new high of 20 billion to 25 billion yuan.
All in all, there are a wide variety of medical plastic products (from conventional medical supplies to pedometers, electronic blood pressure monitors, blood glucose meters, digital plastic thermometers, and higher-end implantable medical devices, etc.), which have great market potential and broad prospects. The domestic medical device industry should include the development and research of new types of medical plastic products in development plans to narrow the gap with western countries.