While the global stent market has matured, China continues to be an exciting country for the drug eluting stent (DES) manufacturers. The DES market in China has been growing by at least three to four times faster than the Global DES market in the past few years. The high growth opportunities presented by the market in China are expected to help it overtake Japan as the third largest Drug Eluting Stents market in the near future.
The local players in China have been able to leverage their reach and pricing advantage to dominate the market. MicroPort Corp., Lepu Medical Technology Co. Ltd., and Biosensors International Ltd. together control close to three quarters of the market in the country, a position they can leverage to gain a major share in the global market. Following the exit of Johnson & Johnson in 2011, the share of the major global players, namely, Medtronic Inc., Abbot Laboratories, and Boston Scientific Corp. shrunk to three-fourth of the market share from the nearly 100% market share they held a few years ago.
This decline in the market shares of the leading vendors in the global market has opened up several opportunities for vendors from China and other emerging countries to play a more important role in the global market. Some of the potential manufacturers from emerging countries other than China include Opto Circuits Ltd. (India), and Terumo Medical Corp. (Japan).
Microport is the largest Drug Eluting Stents manufacturer in the market in China and is currently looking to bolster its current offering, Firebird 2 (a second generation DES) with the Firehawk (a third generation DES). The State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), China, is expected to approve the Firehawk in 2014. Microport is also seeking a European Conformity (CE) Mark approval for the Firehawk.
Biosensors International is the third largest vendor in the market. It had more than a 10% share in the market in Europe in 2011 after its product, BioMatrix Flex, received the CE Mark approval in 2010. Biosensors is expected to further enhance its market share by obtaining the CE Mark approval for BioFreedom, its polymer-free DES, in early 2013.
TechNavio has been covering the DES market in-depth since 2008, and it will continue to track the transition of the major Chinese vendors into stronger global players, and update its research on the DES market in 2013. Some of the reports published by TechNavio on the DES market are as follows:
