Market Overview

In recent years, expansion of infusion treatment increased the opportunity to use infusion pumps, and there are more cases of infusion pumps used for various other treatments, which led the pumps to be used extensively, i.e., at hospital wards, operation rooms, intensive care units, catheterization laboratories and other sectors, making the infusion pump market to continue prospering. In addition, infusion pumps have begun being used for specific purposes such as for central venous infusion or enteral nutrition and have been increasingly demanded not only at hospitals but also at home care sites. Also, some rental dealer networks for medical equipment have been well-organized, which, too, increased the facilities and patients that use medical pumps. The domestic infusion pump market based on the shipment volume at makers in FY2018 expanded to 38,875 units, 102.1% of the volume in FY2017, and the market size for FY2019 is expected to attain 40,890 units, 105.2% of that of the previous fiscal year.

The frequency of using syringe pumps (or syringe drivers), which are used for administering smaller amounts of fluid than infusion pumps, has also shown stable growth, because of increase in chemical drugs that require precise dosage, in addition to the system of managing medical equipment becoming more sufficient than before.

The shipment volume of syringe pumps is likely to remain 19,925 units, 94.4% of the previous fiscal year, but it is expected to rise to 21,000 units for FY2019, 105.4% of that of FY2018.

Other than infusion pumps and syringe pumps, diverse medical pumps are used for specific treatments, such as artificial heart lung apparatuses, IABP (intra-aortic balloon pump), dialysis devices, blood purifiers/blood filtration apparatuses, high-low body temperature fasteners (used at operation rooms and intensive care units), and contrast medium injectors/contrast medium enema devices (used at the time of imaging in radiology). 

Noteworthy Topics

Trend of Introducing Smart Medical Pumps

Smart medical pumps are equipped with IT systems and can transfer the medical record of drug administration in real time by using Wi-Fi. The pumps are introduced mainly as general types of infusion pumps or general stationery types of syringe pumps. In recent years, with the sales volume expected rising, they attract attention as how far the penetration rate increases, though the unit price per pump rises.

Future Outlook

General types of medical pumps (peristaltic types of infusion pumps, general stationery types of syringe pumps, etc.) have proactively been purchased and consolidated at medical equipment centers at each hospital, which makes hundreds of medical pumps to be upgraded simultaneously at each hospital, and makes additional purchase of the pumps later on to be the same types by the same maker, contributing to relatively stable market.

On the other hand, reorganization of hospital bed functions are scheduled toward 2025, bringing about the current total 900 thousand beds for advanced acute stage inpatients in general wards planned to be 180 thousand, and many other inpatient beds can be reduced or converted into those for the inpatient in long-term treatment. Such reorganization in terms of bed functions at hospitals and clinics may adversely affect the future outlook of the medical/infusion/syringe pumps market.

Research Outline