China National Health Development Research Center under the leadership of the National Health and Family Planning Commission released the first report on performance evaluation and experience summing-up for third-party medical laboratories in mainland China on September 5. According to the report, the third-party medical test industry is developing rapidly and will achieve a scale of nearly CNY 30 billion in the next two years.
In developed markets such as the United States, Europe and Japan, the third-party medical laboratory industry is mature. In Japan, the third-party medical laboratories account for 67% of the medical test market. The report points out that the mainland China got off to a late start in the third-party medical test sector, with its first such lab emerging in the mid-1990s. Statistically, the number of independent medical laboratories for medical test and pathological diagnosis increased to 759 and 207 in 2017, with a year-on-year growth of 59% and 276%.
At present, among the enterprises that focus on third-party medical laboratories, KingMed Diognostics, Dian Diagnostics and Adicon are the top three enterprises, together accounting for nearly 70% of the third-party medical laboratory market. Although the share of the third-party medical test market in mainland China in the medical test market in China is still low, there is a huge potential market space in the future. The third-party medical laboratory market will maintain a growth of 30% to 35% from 2018 to 2020, expected to reach a scale of nearly CNY 30 billion.
In terms of the future development of the third-party medical test industry, the report points out that the construction of the third-party medical test institutions should be actively integrated with hierarchical diagnosis and treatment and construction of the medical treatment partnership system, as a beneficial supplement to the public medical service system, to improve the medical test and inspection capacity at grassroots level and promote the balanced allocation of medical and health resources.
