A small scalpel, American companies occupy more than 80% of the market for in my country, and Chinese companies' sales are almost negligible. What is strange about this scalpel ? Is it really impossible for my country to create ?
This scalpel is not an ordinary blade scalpel, but an ultrasonic bone knife. The magic of it is that cuts bones without cutting meat . No matter how hard the bones are, they will break when they touch it, but the muscles, nerves, etc. that are next to each other are not hurt. American companies monopolize more than 80% of the market for this magical scalpel. If Chinese hospitals want to use it, they need to import at a high price. Is the scalpel also stucked by foreigners?
Ultrasonic bone knife that bullies the strong and not the soft,
Bone is the hardest part of the human body. In the past, if you want to do chest, craniotomy or spine-related surgery, you must use sawing knife and other bones to cut before the surgery can be performed. However, in the process of sawing bones, it will inevitably cause irreversible damage to muscles, nerves, etc. After all, no matter how stable the doctor's hands are, it is impossible to avoid the sawing knife from being crooked or jumping at all.
These unnecessary pain and harms were all solved after the appearance of ultrasonic bone knife . The magic of ultrasonic bone knife is that it only works on hard bones, and will not damage the muscles, mucosa or neurovascular next to the bones, greatly reducing the risk of surgery and the pain of patients.
No matter how hard the bone is, is as fragile as an eggshell in front of it. It not only saves the doctor's strength to saw the bones, can perform surgery more attentively, and can greatly shorten the operation time of . Moreover, an ultrasonic bone knife can not only cut bones, but also grind, drill holes, etc. It is multi-purpose in one machine, and the convenience is far beyond the previous orthopedic surgical instruments.
Ultrasonic bone knife is so magical mainly because it relies on ultrasonic to achieve cutting, unlike traditional scalpels that rely on brute force. After turning on the power, the transducer in the knife will convert electrical energy into mechanical energy, driving the knife head to achieve high-frequency ultrasonic oscillation of for more than 55,000 times per second, completely destroying the bone cells at the contact point between the bone and the knife, thereby achieving the effect of to easily break the bones in one knife.
Such a magical artifact is naturally the favorite of orthopedic doctors. my country has a large population and requires a large number of orthopedic surgeries every year. It can be said that the market demands a lot. Despite this, there are not many companies in my country that produce ultrasonic bone knives. Most of the ultrasonic bone knives used in Chinese hospitals are imported from the United States and are imported at high prices. Because Chinese companies have poor technology, hospitals can only be slaughtered by American companies.
American companies monopolize the market and keep rising prices
According to "2019 Medical Device Blue Book" , the domestic production rate of ultrasonic bone knives in my country is less than 10% . More than 90% of ultrasonic bone knives in the market are imported from foreign countries, and the world's major ultrasonic bone knives manufacturers are all concentrated in the United States . Public data from
shows that the ultrasonic bone knives produced and sold by the United States Medtronic and Johnson & Johnson 4 each year monopolize nearly 80% of the global market, and the proportion of monopoly in China is even higher. At the end of December 2020, at the 30th Shenzhen International Medical Devices Exhibition, Johnson & Johnson received an order of nearly 100,000 units, and each knife was sold at ,499 yuan .
Chinese market demand is high, and there is no competitor that can compete with American companies. In the past two years, American companies have started prices, and the price of ultrasonic bone knife grid has been rising . It has now risen to 14,000 to 8,000 yuan per , which is double or even more than in 2020. But no matter how high the price is, domestic hospitals can only accept it with their nose pinched. It must be used for many surgeries, and no Chinese manufacturer can achieve the domestic replacement of for .
Why is it so difficult to make a small scalpel?
The reason why Chinese manufacturers are not competitive is mainly because lacks core technology .
The three most important parts of ultrasonic bone knife are cutter head, transducer and overall architecture technology . At present, only the only one who can barely meet the standards in China is the knife head, and the other two items are completely incomparable to the United States.
As for the knife head, ultrasonic bone knife also needs to be cut due to high frequency vibration. The first material is titanium alloy . As a major aerospace , my country has no problem with titanium alloy manufacturing technology. Titanium alloy used on aircraft and rockets can be produced, and there is definitely no problem with titanium alloy used on the cutting head. It is just that the demand of the manufacturer can be large enough to make the company willing to produce it.
Although the knife head is not a big problem, the devices of transducers failed to overcome . The most important component of the transducer is piezoelectric ceramic, which is a ceramic material with piezoelectric characteristics. Japan accounts for 50% of the world's market share, and the latest technology is in the hands of the United States. It takes a lot of capital and time to make a breakthrough, which limits the development of my country's ultrasonic bone knife companies.
Another thing that Chinese enterprises are not as skilled as humans is that the overall architecture of ultrasonic bone knife . To make ultrasonic bone knife small and easy to use, a perfect structure must be found between the components. This is like a mobile phone, the parts are almost the same. What makes large manufacturers more outstanding than small manufacturers is that large manufacturers can design better and more reasonable architectures to make product performance better.
ultrasonic bone knife is also similar, because American manufacturers have the first-mover advantage of . Years of experience allow them to achieve a better product architecture. However, Chinese companies started late and are still in the stage of constantly accumulating experience to narrow the gap. It will be difficult to shake the monopoly position of US manufacturers for a while.
nothing, it can stump Chinese people
When we are weaker than others, Chinese people will never give up on themselves, but will chase them. Just like chips are choked, we are determined to develop them ourselves. We are confident in conquering high-end chip technologies, and relatively low-end ultrasonic bone knives are naturally not a problem.
In June 2022, the keen cross-border BYD released a new patent for ultrasonic bone knife . made a major improvement to the ultrasonic bone knife in terms of the product architecture. During the work of the ultrasonic bone knife, water must be sprayed to maintain constant temperature on the surgical site and rinse the bone chips, etc. Traditional ultrasonic bone knives generally have external waterway or inlet on the side, which not only affects the doctor's feel, but also causes greater energy loss of to .
In the new patent applied for by BYD, the top of the transducer is changed to suspended design to make the weight and energy distribution of the bone knife more balanced and more in line with the usage habits of Chinese doctors. In addition, the patent also added a sealing ring to the inner wall of the transducer , reducing the risk of water leakage and short circuit of the ultrasonic bone knife. After all, this is an electrical device, and the consequences of short circuit occurring.
Although this is not a disruptive change, I believe that if Chinese companies can take the first step, they will definitely go further and further on the road of innovation until they finally develop more advanced products. I believe that BYD has such strength, just like their electric cars, one day, will successfully break through and lead the world to develop .
Author: Mango is very busy
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