Oct 16 2015
Research and Markets has announced the addition of the "China Medical Robot Industry Report, 2014-2018" report to their offering.
Medical robots can be applied to surgeries, rescue, transport, nursing and rehabilitation of the sick and wounded. Wherein, surgery and rehabilitation robots are two striking market segments.
Due to the relatively low technical barriers, numerous companies such as Ekso Bionics (the United States), ReWalk (Israel), Robotics (New Zealand), Rex Bionics (New Zealand) and Cyberdyne (Japan) have got into the field of rehabilitation robots. However, the global surgical robot market is mainly occupied by the US-based Intuitive Surgical, who had sold out 3,266 Da Vinci surgical robots by the end of 2014. Thanks to high technical barriers, high costs, supporting supplies, training of doctors and other factors, Da Vinci surgical robots featured with preemptive advantages will still master the absolute leadership in the long run.
Although China did not start research on medical robots late, it is backward in terms of the development, and is currently dependent on imported surgical robots. By the end of 2014, 24 Chinese hospitals had imported 29 surgeries robots which accomplished 11,651 surgeries cumulatively (5,116 in 2014). In accordance with examination and approval of National Health and Family Planning Commission of China, China will import a total of at least 54 surgical robots which are expected to complete 20,000 surgeries by the end of 2015.
However, China has also made some progress in local surgical robots. For example, the minimally invasive surgical robot system Smart S developed by Tianjin University and Smart Robot Technology Group jointly has entered clinical stages; HIT Robot Institute (affiliated companies: Boshi Automation and Harbin Sizherui) expects to apply for testing of its minimally invasive celiac surgical robot system in the form of product testing at the end of 2015, and apply for registration at the end of 2017. Therefore, commercial local surgical robots may emerge in the Chinese market in 2018.