Summary of Research Findings

This survey focuses on 33 items of medical equipment at hospitals, general clinics, etc., that are used for treatment or therapy.
In FY2023 and FY2024, manufacturers faced significant production challenges driven by global economic conditions and rising material and logistics costs. The situation was particularly acute for Western manufacturers, who, following mass layoffs during the COVID-19 pandemic, struggled to rebuild their workforces, leading to production delays.

In Japan, soaring costs including utility costs and labor costs have resulted a decline in financial performance of medical corporations from FY2022, delaying renewals of medical equipment. These delays left a considerable number of instruments that need replacement. While the impact of the pandemic is still observed, we project that the market size of medical equipment for treatment/therapy in FY2023 to decrease by 2.1% from the preceding fiscal year to 173,843 million yen (32 items, based on the sales of manufacturers and distributors).
It should be noted that when the master-slave surgical robot is taken into account (33 items), the market size reaches 194,203 million yen.

Noteworthy Topics

Shift From Patent-based Monopoly to Five-Entity Rivalry Invigorates Master-Slave Surgical Robot Market

In 1999, Intuitive Surgical introduced the surgical system called da Vinci, which features arms equipped with various instruments including camera and forceps, allowing an operator to perform laparoscopic surgery with a three-dimensional image of the operative field. Following the approval by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2000, Keio University Hospital adopted the system in advanced medical care. With the application of National Health Insurance coverage for the use of the da Vinci system for certain procedures in prostate cancer surgery in 2012, utilization of the system has expanded.

The dominance of da Vinci in the master-slave robotic surgery market continued until the expiration of patent in 2019. Following the expiration, numerous companies entered the global surgical robotics market. In 2019, regulatory approval for manufacturing and sales was granted to the Senhance Digital Laparoscopy System (Asensus Surgical), followed by hinotori™ in 2020 (developed by Medicaroid Corporation, a joint venture between Kawasaki Heavy Industries and Sysmex), which is the first domestically manufactured system. Subsequent approvals included the Hugo™ Robotic-Assisted Surgery System (Covidien Japan, 2022) and Saroa Surgical System (developed by Liverfield, a startup formed through joint efforts by the Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tokyo Medical and Dental University, 2023). Additionally, in 2024, Intuitive Surgical received FDA approval for the da Vinci 5, which became available in the U.S. market.

Research Outline