Device Manufacturers Risk Creating “Super-Competitors” in China
Posted by crimsonlanguage on 2011/08/11
If risk is defined as “probability of occurence x severity of harm” China is looking riskier and riskier for US medical device manufacturers. The reason behind this risk is, paradoxically, current success.
According to industry resource MassDevice, Medtronic plans to double the number of employees in China over the next 4 years – already China is the leading market for Medtronic overseas sales and is growing at 20% per year. Likewise, Boston Scientific announced plans to invest $150 million in the Chinese market over the next 5 years and GE Healthcare took the unusual step of moving its entire x-ray business to China. Together, these substantial industry growth iniatives are laying the groundwork for short-term financial returns, but also long-term problems on a massive scale.
I’ve written before about the long-term threat to US device manufacturers posed by China: including reverse engineered products, government-sponsored IP theft, lessons learned by Cisco and concerns from the US automotive industry. Given the current rate of Chinese investment by US manufactuers, it’s not hard to see that while the short term rewards are tantilizing, the long-term risks of creating Chinese super-competitors are immense.
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