Molecular Diagnosis On Tuyere: Fierce Competition Between Upstream And Downstream, Continuous Development Of Domestic Substitution

A sudden outbreak of new crown disease has made the public familiar with nucleic acid detection, followed by the "financing craze" of molecular diagnosis track.

From January to July 2020, a total of 29 financing events occurred in the molecular diagnosis track in the primary market, accounting for about 70% of the whole IVD (in vitro diagnosis) field.

The financing climax mainly occurred in March and April, from March 7 to April 8. In the secondary market, in the first seven months of this year, there have been five listed companies in the field of molecular diagnosis. Oriental biology landed on the science and technology innovation board, Wantai biological successfully impacted a shares, and new industrial biology was listed on the gem. Among them, Wantai biological stock price has been rising, up more than 16 times. In the US stock market, burning stone medicine and panshengzi were listed on NASDAQ in June.

A member of a molecular diagnosis enterprise in South China told the 21st century economic reporter that since this year, all the related industrial chains involved in the detection of new crown nucleic acid have been busy on the run, and naturally have been heated by capital. In fact, the gross profit of simple nucleic acid detection is not high, and the gross profit of overseas export business is higher.

In vitro diagnosis of fire fever

The epidemic brought fire to the industry of in vitro diagnosis, which was not warm.

According to the performance forecast for the half year of 2020 released by BGI, the company's overall operating revenue in the first half of the year is expected to be 4-4.3 billion yuan, an increase of 209.73% - 232.96% over the same period of last year. It is estimated that the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies in the first half of the year is 1530 million yuan-1630 million yuan, an increase of 672.83% - 723.35% over the same period of last year.

The significant growth in the first half of the year was mainly due to the strong market demand for new coronavirus detection kits and detection services, and the company's infection prevention and control business and precision medicine comprehensive solutions business increased significantly during the reporting period.

The data shows that the new crown detection products related to BGI have covered more than 180 countries and regions in the world, and more than 35 million copies of new coronavirus nucleic acid detection kit products have been delivered overseas. The "fire eye" laboratory operated by the company has been set up in 16 major cities, and the maximum daily detection flux of "fire eye" laboratory in China exceeds 200000.

In addition, great progress has been made in the registration and application of main business products, government subsidies and equity disposal income have also contributed to the significant growth of BGI's performance.

The excellent performance of BGI since this year is also reflected in its stock price. Since the outbreak of the epidemic, the stock price of BGI has been climbing all the way, with a rise of 185.72% since the beginning of the year.

In the first half of 2020, IVD is not only a big success in the international market.

In the first half of 2020, the revenue of Roche Group is 3.581 billion francs (Swiss Franc 3965 billion) in the first half of 2020.

In the first half of 2020, demand in all regions will be affected by covid-19 in the second quarter (especially in April and may). Routine detection decreased significantly due to the decrease of routine health examination, while the detection of emergency and new coronavirus increased significantly. Among the four subdivisions of Roche Diagnostics, the growth of molecular diagnosis was the highest.

Abbott's global diagnostics revenue was $3.82 billion, up 2% year-on-year, accounting for 25% of the group's revenue, which was the same as last year. In terms of business lines, it mainly benefited from the rapid growth of molecular diagnostic products, with revenue of 498 million US dollars, up 131.1% year-on-year.

Danaher's total revenue was $9.64 billion, up 11.26% year-on-year, and its net profit was $1.522 billion, up 51% year-on-year, exceeding previous expectations. The revenue of diagnosis business was $3.287 billion, up 4% year-on-year.

Siemens Medical Diagnosis business revenue was $2.312 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2%, accounting for 28% of the total revenue (the fiscal year is from October 1, 2019 to March 31, 2020).

Fierce competition between upstream and downstream

The upstream of molecular diagnosis industry includes detection instruments, diagnostic reagents, consumables and other product suppliers. It is an industry with R & D and technological innovation as its main competitiveness. Downstream industries are institutions that provide medical services for patients, including hospitals, third-party medical laboratory service institutions, scientific research institutions, etc., which are mainly supported by medical services and greatly restricted by upstream industries.

The development of upstream high-end original technology is not only the core competitiveness of molecular diagnosis related enterprises, but also the key factor for the development of gene detection industry and precision medicine in China.

Prior to this, some industry insiders pointed out to the reporter of the 21st century economic report that although the domestic gene testing market is booming and some technologies and products have surpassed the international advanced level, the phenomenon of foreign technology monopoly is still relatively prominent. There are few enterprises with independent innovation core technology, and most institutions are still in the downstream detection service end, and the innovation and new technology level of upstream technology The development of Taiwan needs to be strengthened.

Liang Yaoming, chairman and chief executive officer of Guangzhou Jinyu Medical Laboratory Group Co., Ltd., previously told reporters of the 21st century economic report that the public health conditions at the grassroots level in China have not kept pace with the needs of the people, including hardware and software. At present, many County People's hospitals do not even have biosafety laboratories, PCR equipment, and personnel who can do PCR. Therefore, a third-party laboratory is needed to help them do a good job in public health.

With the gradual expansion of the molecular diagnosis market and the emergence of a large number of gene detection related equipment, there are mainly nucleic acid extraction instrument, PCR amplification instrument, nucleic acid molecular hybridization instrument, gene chip instrument and gene sequencer.

In the field of mid end instruments which are relatively easy to break through, such as nucleic acid extractor, PCR amplification instrument, nucleic acid molecular hybridization instrument and gene chip instrument, localization has been formed and gradually occupy the main market. However, the localization of gene sequencer has just started, and the technology threshold of sequencing equipment and consumables is relatively high. The mainstream sequencing equipment and technology are basically controlled by a few European and American companies A and Thermo Fisher together occupy about 90% of the global market share and have formed an oligopoly. In 2017, as the first year of domestic sequencer innovation, BGI and other enterprises have launched their own sequencers. With the emergence of enterprises with core technology, China's high-throughput sequencing enterprises are developing towards self-sufficiency.

At present, the application of molecular diagnosis in China mainly focuses on the detection of infectious diseases, such as hepatitis, sexually transmitted diseases, hand, foot and mouth, tuberculosis, influenza, blood infectious diseases, etc. the mainstream technology is fluorescence PCR technology, which is the most mature application field of clinical molecular diagnosis technology. In terms of genetic disease detection, at present, the application projects are increasing, but still mainly focus on non-invasive prenatal screening and genetics There are a few projects such as sex cancer detection, and the application projects of individualized cancer treatment and drug genome detection are also increasing.

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