Nov. 27 (NBD) -- China's healthcare-related industry would reach 7.2 trillion yuan (about 1.1 trillion U.S. dollars) by 2020, expected to become 2.5 times as much as today's size and contribute 8 percent to the country's GDP.

Tao Jianhong, deputy director of the Southern Medicine Economic Research Institute under the China Food and Drug Administration, made the above remarks at the 2017 China Medical Capital Forum hosted by NBD in southwestern China's Chengdu last Friday.

Photo/NBD

Chinese healthcare sector to see reshuffle

China's healthcare industry has entered a new era, and the next five to ten years will be a critical period, Tao said.

One quarter of bio-pharmaceutical companies in China are estimated to vanish from the market in five years, Guo Yunpei, chairman of the China Pharmaceutical Enterprise Management Association, said in a separate speech.

He explained that the number of pharmaceutical firms in China is much bigger than that in the U.S., but the sales of Chinese pharmaceutical company is much lower than that of their U.S. peers.

With the industrial structure and medicine distribution model changing, this niche sector is predicted to undergo a larger-scale reshuffle or restructuring next year, Guo noted.

The "Healthy China 2020" program, a strategy aimed at improving the health of the whole nation, highlights the importance of the lifecycle health management, urging the participation of departments overseeing environmental protection, education, sports, and agricultural sectors, rather than pure medical services.

Tao believes that segments such as the elderly and children care and foods for special medical purposes will see a bright prospect in the future.

Precision medicine presents new opportunities

The development of healthcare-related new economy will be spearheaded by precision medicine, Yin Ye, CEO of BGI, a Shenzhen, China-based genomics organization with the vision of using genomics to benefit the human race, told NBD at the 2017 China Listed Company Leaders Summit in Sichuan province's capital last Friday.

Yin Ye (Photo/NBD)

Through precise prevention and control, fatal diseases like birth defects, tumor, and infection could be eliminated at the source. Yin believes that precision medicine will give a strong boost to the industry under a prevention-first medical system in the future.

According to him, gene sequencing is the cornerstone of precision medicine, and is being widely adopted in mechanism research and clinical diagnosis. It is a way of getting the complete set of human genes from blood or by other means, and the accurate gene analysis will then provide biology genetic information to help predict potential diseases and carry out early prevention and treatment.  

In his view, pharmaceutical companies that value technologies, preventive care, and precision medicine will definitely see prosperous growth.

Email: lansuying@nbd.com.cn