With the outbreak of the new global technological revolution, the medical industry has undergone revolutionary changes. In the late 1990s, under the background of global aging and people’s increasing demand for high-quality medical services, medical robots can effectively improve the quality of medical services and ease the problem of insufficient medical resources, which has attracted widespread attention and has become a current research hotspot.
The concept of medical robots
Medical Robot is a device that compiles corresponding procedures according to the needs of the medical field, and then performs specified actions and converts the actions into the movement of the operating mechanism according to the actual situation.
Our country pays high attention to the research and development of medical robots.The research, development and application of medical robots play a positive role in alleviating the aging of our country and people’s rapidly growing demand for high-quality medical services.
For the government, actively promoting the development of medical robotics, it has great significance to improve our country’s scientific and technological level, create a technological innovation level, and attracting high-end scientific and technological talents.
For the enterprises, medical robots are currently a hot field of global attention, and the market prospects are broad. The research and development of medical robots by enterprises can greatly improve the technical level and market competitiveness of enterprises.
From the person, medical robots can provide people with accurate, effective and personalized medical and health solutions, which can greatly improve people’s quality of life.
Different types of the medical robots
According to the statistical analysis of medical robots by the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), medical robots can be divided into the following four categories according to different functions: surgical robots, rehabilitation robots, medical service robots and medical assistance robots. According to incomplete statistics from the Qianzhan Industry Research Institute, in 2019, rehabilitation robots ranked first in the market share of medical robots with 41%, medical assistance robots accounted for 26%, and the proportions of medical service robots and surgical robots were not much different. 17% and 16% respectively.
Surgical robot
Surgical robots integrate various modern high-tech means, and are known as the jewel in the crown of the robot industry. Compared with other robots, surgical robots have the characteristics of high technical threshold, high precision, and high added value. In recent years, orthopedic and neurosurgical robots of surgical robots have obvious characteristics of industry-university-research integration, and a large number of scientific research results have been transformed and applied. At present, surgical robots have been used in orthopedics, neurosurgery, cardiac surgery, gynecology and other surgeries in China.
China’s minimally invasive surgical robot market is still monopolized by imported robots. Da Vinci surgical robot is currently the most successful minimally invasive surgical robot, and has been a leader in the surgical robot market since it was certified by the US FDA in 2000.
With the continuous development of technology, surgical robots are leading minimally invasive surgery into a new era, and the market is developing rapidly. According to Trend Force data, the global remote surgical robot market size was approximately US$3.8 billion in 2016, and will increase to US$9.3 billion in 2021, with a compound growth rate of 19.3%.
Rehabilitation robot
With the increasing aging trend worldwide, people’s demand for high-quality medical services is growing rapidly, and the gap between the supply and demand of medical services continues to expand. Rehabilitation robot is currently the largest robot system in the domestic market. Its’ market share has far exceeded that of surgical robots. Its’ technical threshold and cost are lower than surgical robots. According to its functions, it can be divided into exoskeleton robots and rehabilitation training robots.
Human exoskeleton robots integrate advanced technologies such as sensing, control, information, and mobile computing to provide operators with a wearable mechanical structure that enables the robot to independently or assist patients in joint activities and assisted walking.
Rehabilitation training robot is a kind of medical robot that assists patients in early exercise rehabilitation training. Its products include upper limb rehabilitation robot, lower limb rehabilitation robot, intelligent wheelchair, interactive health training robot, etc. The high-end market of domestic rehabilitation training robots is monopolized by European and American brands such as the United States and Switzerland, and the prices remain high.
Medical service robot
Compared with surgical robots and rehabilitation robots, medical service robots have a relatively low technical threshold, play a very important role in the medical field, and have broad application prospects. For example, telemedicine consultations, patient care, hospital disinfection, assistance to patients with limited mobility, delivery of laboratory orders, etc. In China, technology companies such as HKUST Xunfei and Cheetah Mobile are actively exploring research on intelligent medical service robots.
Medical assistance robot
Medical assistance robots are mainly used to meet the medical needs of people with limited mobility or incapacity. For example, the nursing robots developed abroad include the gentleman robot “care-o-bot-3″ in Germany, and the “Rober” and “Resyone” developed in Japan. They can do housework, equivalent to several nursing staff, and can also talk to people, providing emotional comfort for the elderly living alone.
For another example, the research and development direction of domestic companion robots is mainly for the children’s companionship and early education industry. The representative one is the “ibotn Children’s Companion Robot” developed by Shenzhen Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd., which integrates three core functions of child care, child companionship and children’s education. All in one, creating a one-stop solution for children’s companionship.
The development prospect of China’s medical robot industry
Technology: The current research hotspots in the medical robot industry are five aspects: robot optimization design, surgical navigation technology, system integration technology, teleoperation and remote surgery technology, and medical Internet big data fusion technology. The future development trend is specialization, intelligence, miniaturization, integration and remoterzation. At the same time, it is necessary to continuously improve the precision, minimal invasiveness, safety and stability of robots.
Market: According to the forecast of the World Health Organization, the aging of China’s population will be very serious by 2050, and 35% of the population will be over 60 years old. Medical robots can more accurately diagnose patients’ symptoms, reduce manual operation errors, and improve medical efficiency, thereby solving the problem of insufficient supply of domestic medical services, and have a good market prospect. Yang Guangzhong, an academician of the Royal Academy of Engineering, believes that medical robots are currently the most promising field in the domestic robot market. On the whole, under the two-way drive of supply and demand, China’s medical robots will have a huge market growth space in the future.
Talents: the research and development process of medical robots involves knowledge of medicine, computer science, data science, biomechanics and other related disciplines, and the demand for interdisciplinary talents with multidisciplinary backgrounds is increasingly urgent. Some colleges and universities have also begun to add related majors and scientific research platforms. For example, in December 2017, Shanghai Transportation University established the Medical Robot Research Institute; in 2018, Tianjin University took the lead in offering the major of “Intelligent Medical Engineering”; The major was approved, and China became the first country in the world to set up a special undergraduate major to train rehabilitation engineering talents.
Financing: According to statistics, by the end of 2019, a total of 112 financing events had occurred in the field of medical robots. The financing stage is mostly concentrated around the A round. Except for a few companies with a single financing of over 100 million yuan, most medical robot projects have a single financing amount of 10 million yuan, and the financing amount of angel round projects is distributed between 1 million yuan and 10 million yuan.
At present, there are more than 100 medical robot start-up companies in China, some of which are the industrial layout of industrial robot or medical device companies. And large well-known venture capitals such as ZhenFund, IDG Capital, TusHoldings Fund, and GGV Capital have already begun to deploy and accelerate their pace in the field of medical robotics. The development of the medical robotics industry has come and will continue.
Post time: Jan-06-2023