July 25 (NBD) -- Medical device manufacturer Shenzhen Mindray Bio-medical Electronics Co,. Ltd. (Mindray) has gained approval for its initial public offering (IPO) in A-share market.

The company is poised to issue 121.6 million shares to raise about 6.34 billion yuan (931.8 million U.S. dollars), expected to be the largest IPO in the Chinese second board market.

The valuation of the company is forecasted to hit 100 billion yuan (14.7 billion U.S. dollars).

Founded in 1991, Shenzhen-based Mindray provides medical devices and solutions that cover the fields of patient monitoring & life support, in-vitro diagnostics, and medical imaging system. Mindray possesses a sound global R&D, marketing and service network with subsidiaries and branch offices in 32 countries in North and Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia-Pacific, as well as 31 branch offices in China. To date, Mindray has nearly 7,600 employees.

According to the prospectus, Mindray registered revenue of 9.03 billion yuan (1.3 billion U.S. dollars) and 11.17 billion yuan (1.6 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Its net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company stood at 1.6 billion yuan (235.2 million U.S. dollars) in 2016, with the figure for 2017 surging 62 percent year over year to 2.59 billion yuan (380.7 million U.S. dollars).

The fund the company raises through IPO will be used to bolster 8 projects including the marketing service system update project, information system construction project, production base expansion project and product center construction project.

Due to the weak foundation of China's medical instrument industry in the early days and the nation's late start in medical devices regulation, Chinese medical enterprises are less competitive in the global market.

Mindray is the only Chinese company that ranked among the Top 100 Medical Device Companies of 2015 listed by Qemd, directory of pre-qualified suppliers and service providers to the medical device and diagnostics industry.

The prospectus showed that the U.S. and the Europe control 70 percent of the global medical device manufacturing market. China holds a 14 percent share, but the high-end medical instrument manufacturing is dominated by foreign enterprises.

Though the Chinese medical device market is relatively small compared to the pharmaceutical industry, it posted fast growth in recent years, according to a report on the development of Chinese medical device sector in 2017 published by the China Society for Drug Regulation.

By 2020, the annual sales volume of medical devices is expected to exceed 700 billion yuan (102.9 billion U.S. dollars), and the market will grow at more than 10 percent a year on average in the coming 10 years, the report predicted.

Mindray now has captured 49 percent of the domestic high-end monitor market, and it has applied leading independent innovation technology to its core products such as 5-part hematology analyzer and color doppler ultrasound machine.

Email: zhanglingxiao@nbd.com.cn