China's health material products urgently need upgrading

Sanitary materials have always been an important part of China's export of medical device products. China's export of sanitary materials accounts for about 20% of the international sanitary materials market. However, from the analysis of the composition of export sanitary materials, sanitary materials based on pure cotton products still accounted for most of the share of export sanitary materials. Although in recent years the export volume of non-woven sanitary materials, which uses chemical fiber as the main raw material, has increased, such products are still low value-added varieties in the international market.

In recent years, due to the gradual changes in the domestic planting structure, some farmers in the traditional cotton producing areas in the Mainland have begun to replant more cash crops such as greenhouse vegetables or fruit trees, and no longer grow cotton, making the total domestic cotton production decline in recent years. As for the situation, China has long been transformed from an exporter of cotton into an importer. The price of imported cotton is rising. Coupled with the sharp rise in labor costs and the fact that export prices for sanitary materials have been low, the pure cotton sanitary materials processing industry is facing difficulties. Therefore, the conversion of new high value-added sanitary materials should become a topic that the domestic sanitary materials industry must consider.

New material development accelerated

In fact, the variety of sanitary materials has been continuously innovating. Since the 1970s, Western manufacturers have begun to develop non-cotton new medical dressing products to replace traditional gauze bandage dressings. For example, hydrogel medical dressings developed using non-toxic polymer materials are a breakthrough new product for traditional gauze. With the rise of the bio-engineering pharmaceutical industry, some new bioengineering drugs such as EGF and collagen that can promote the growth of skin cells have been added to new types of medical dressings to accelerate wound healing. Later, new products including new types of hygienic materials such as silver ions, silicones, algins, and activated charcoal, and new-type polymer composite hygienic materials have entered the hygienic material industry one after another, and have become mainstream varieties in the international hygienic material market.

In the past few years, the annual growth rate of new sanitary materials in the international market has remained above 10%. In particular, new products, such as hydrogel dressings, foam dressings, transparent dressings, and hydrocolloids, have been widely used in clinical practice as new products for “functional sanitation materials”. Although China's traditional cotton-based sanitary materials export industry can still receive orders from foreign companies, it must face fierce competition from Asian countries with lower labor costs than our country's Pakistan, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.

In foreign countries, the pace of development of new types of sanitary materials has not stopped. Although developed countries in Europe and the United States have long been leaders in the development and production of new types of sanitary materials, many Western pharmaceutical and medical device research institutions are still accelerating the development of new types of sanitary materials, with particular attention being paid to the type of absorption that has entered the medical field. Sanitary materials.

In 2008, the U.S. FDA formally approved the use of Manuka honey from New Zealand as a sanitary material for skin wounds. This is the first time that the competent medical authorities in Europe and the United States have approved natural honey as a sanitary material for clinical treatment. In a broad sense, honey is also an "absorbable sanitary material."

Another absorbable sanitary material is chitosan from chitin. Chitin fiber is actually a chitosan fiber, which essentially belongs to natural polysaccharides, has good compatibility with the human body, and can be absorbed by human tissues. However, because of the high cost, Chitin fiber has not been widely used. Later, the European and American countries began to develop new raw materials for affordable sanitary materials that can be affordable for most patients, including PLA (polylactic acid) and PGA (polyglutamic acid) and some substances derived from natural plant materials. Absorbable sanitary materials have become new trends in research and development in the international sanitary materials industry.

Domestic lack of innovation platform

According to statistics, the total output value of new sanitary materials currently accounts for 80% of the medical dressings in developed countries, while the traditional sanitary materials made of pure cotton or non-woven materials only account for less than 20% of the market for medical dressings. Therefore, the development of new sanitary materials is imperative for a large number of sanitary materials processing plants in China.

In addition to Manuka honey, China has no resources, in fact, many new raw materials for health materials can be produced in China and the production and sales volume is huge. For example, the raw material for alginic acid sanitary materials is alginate from kelp or seaweed, which is exported every year in China; the raw material of chitin fiber is chitosan, and a large number of chitosans are produced and exported in the coastal provinces of China. To Europe and the United States developed countries. Although silver-ion-containing health materials have been studied in China, they have not yet been widely used in clinical practice. As for hydrogels and hydrocolloids, although there are pharmaceutical research institutes in China, no products have been formally put on the market.

The key to the development of new types of sanitary materials is the large amount of capital required for clinical application. In fact, China's sanitary materials industry is a large industry involving hundreds of thousands of labor and hundreds of factories. Most of the sanitary materials processing plants are producing low-value-added old products. Transformation is easier said than done for them. Moreover, research institutes generally lack funding. The relative lag in production and research has constrained the progress of the development of new-type sanitary materials in China and the speed of listing, and it has also formed a situation in which the domestic sanitary materials industry has been difficult to change for decades. To thoroughly change the face of China's sanitary materials industry, it is necessary to increase investment and organize the coordination of factory-school cooperation. At the same time, a sound risk investment system must be established to create a good platform for the development of new sanitary materials.