Cancer has become the biggest killer of human life. The high mortality rate of cancer is largely due to the delay of treatment due to the lack of early detection. The emergence of home real-time detection equipment (POCT) solves this problem in time. It can monitor the physical condition of users at any time. Once abnormalities are found, they can be treated in time, which can effectively reduce the mortality of cancer patients.

1. POCT equipment - disease detection at home

Not only in the field of cancer, POCT devices that can realize rapid disease detection emerge in endlessly in recent years. Recently, the research team from Stanford University has developed a small household urine testing device, which can not only detect nephropathy, diabetes and urinary tract infections, but also detect bladder cancer. Compared with the urine detection in traditional hospitals, this equipment has the advantages of simple operation, stable results, fast detection and small volume.

"It can make the test results of known diseases more accurate," Dr. gennifer T. Smith, a participant in the study, said in an interview It is conceivable that with the help of this equipment, patients can conduct urine test at home, detect relevant diseases as soon as possible, and save the complex process of hospital examination. For the hospital, the patients who come to see a doctor have been preliminarily tested, so there is no need to arrange patients for useless examination, which saves medical resources and improves the speed of diagnosis and treatment.

Urine detection is only one of the application fields of POCT equipment. Other main fields include blood biochemical detection, cardiovascular disease detection, tumor molecular marker detection, pathogenic microorganism detection and so on.

Driven by the aging population and graded diagnosis and treatment system, POCT industry will usher in unprecedented development opportunities. At present, the POCT industry is booming all over the world, with an industrial scale of more than 18 billion US dollars and an annual growth rate of more than 8%. Although the domestic POCT industry started late, it developed rapidly. At present, the domestic industrial scale has exceeded 700 million US dollars. According to the forecast, the scale of China's POCT industry will reach US $1.3 billion in 2018.

2. Development characteristics of POCT market in China

At present, POCT industry is developing in full swing, and the domestic market presents the following characteristics:

The market potential is huge and the development prospect is bright.

Under the current domestic medical situation, large hospitals are overcrowded, small hospitals are few, medical resources are unevenly distributed, the utilization rate is low, and the pressure of hospital diagnosis and treatment is gradually increasing. For large tertiary hospitals, POCT equipment has fast detection speed, can realize rapid diagnosis, and can alleviate the pressure of diagnosis and treatment in large hospitals. For small primary medical institutions, with the promotion of hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system in recent years, primary medical institutions will receive more patients in the future. Therefore, the current situation of poor hardware equipment in primary medical institutions needs to be improved. POCT equipment has the advantages of low cost and small volume, and is suitable for primary medical institutions. In addition to medical institutions, with the improvement of people's living standards, domestic POCT equipment is more and more favored by ordinary families. According to statistics, the annual growth rate of POCT market in China remains at 20% - 30%, far exceeding the growth rate of global POCT market. POCT industry will have broad market prospects in China in the future.

Foreign products dominate, and domestic enterprises need to make efforts.

Foreign POCT equipment enterprises started earlier, and companies have already occupied a place with their own technical advantages. At present, foreign products occupy a leading position in the domestic market. Compared with large foreign enterprises such as Siemens, BD and Roche, although there are a large number of domestic POCT equipment enterprises, they start late, have a small scale, lack R & D investment, have no obvious technical and industrial advantages, lack strong enterprises, and their market share is far from that of foreign enterprises. Specifically, most domestic POCT enterprises have just set foot in the field of POCT, and there are not many listed companies, only Wanfu biology, sannuo biology and Nippon instruments.

The key demand is obvious, and the relevant market is broad.

The number of diabetic patients in China is as high as 114 million, 290 million patients with cardiovascular diseases, and 4 million 500 thousand patients with cancer. At present, in the domestic market, in addition to the blood glucose meter, other POCT devices related to the above three diseases are rare. Even if the blood glucose meter is common in the market, its market penetration rate is only 20%, which still has huge growth space compared with 90% penetration rate in developed countries. Therefore, POCT equipment related to blood glucose monitoring, cardiovascular disease marker detection and cancer marker detection has a broad market space.

3. Development trend of POCT market in China

With the promotion of the new medical reform and the enhancement of people's health awareness, POCT industry is bound to usher in the spring of development in China. Looking forward to the future, the domestic POCT industry will develop in the following directions:

(1) Products are gradually localized.

Foreign POCT equipment is mostly for private clinics, with a small number of patients, low flux of POCT equipment and high detection cost. China has a large population base and many patients, so POCT equipment with high flux, low cost and fast detection is more suitable for the current medical situation in China. In addition, China's diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer patients are numerous, the demand for related products is large. Therefore, according to the current situation of the domestic medical industry, domestic POCT enterprises can focus on the research and development of relevant products, seize the technological commanding height, break the dominant position of foreign companies and promote the localization of POCT products.

(2) Primary medical institutions will become the main battlefield of POCT equipment.

The current medical situation in China is quite different from that in developed countries. Domestic medical resources are in short supply and unreasonable distribution. Most high-quality medical resources are concentrated in tertiary hospitals, and the problems of difficult and expensive medical treatment are more prominent. POCT equipment has low price and fast detection speed, which can well alleviate the pressure of large number of patients and lack of equipment in primary medical institutions. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, POCT equipment will show its strength in China's primary medical institutions.

(3) The market share of household POCT equipment will gradually increase.

According to the place of use of POCT equipment, it can be divided into hospital POCT equipment and household POCT equipment. Most of the current POCT devices are hospital POCT devices, and the only successful domestic POCT device in the market is blood glucose meter, which can not meet the growing market demand. With the improvement of people's living standards, the aggravation of aging and the enhancement of national health awareness, the market share of household POCT equipment is gradually increasing. Therefore, more household POCT products will appear in the market in the future to meet the needs of the household market.

(source: Instrument Information Network)