Scientific Times: How China's Scientific Instrument Industry Grows Up

On June 1 last year, the "People's Republic of China Food Safety Law" will be formally implemented. The melamine incident has hit the dairy industry in China and made food safety an unprecedented concern for the public. The scientific testing equipment industry has quietly received huge business opportunities.

However, in view of Professor Jiang Shiqiang, executive director of the China Analytical Instrument Society, this does not mean that China's scientific instrument industry is therefore promising. “The current situation of China's scientific instrument industry is grim, and at the same time it faces external pressure and internal vicious competition.” At the 2009 annual meeting of the China Scientific Instruments Development Conference, Jiang Shiqiang expressed concern about the development of China's scientific instrument industry.

About 30 billion yuan market demand Chinese companies can be divided into several cups, "The scientific instruments used for inspection, testing and analysis are the technical support in the food safety assurance system, and food safety guarantees depend on the demand for scientific instruments." Jiang Shiqiang Say. Taking Shandong Province alone as an example, in order to subsidize 16 prefecture-level cities and 29 dairy-breeding major counties, the province used a financial allocation of 11.25 million yuan last year to purchase high-performance liquid chromatographs and related equipment for the detection of melamine; during this period, Shanxi The Taiyuan municipal government has also allocated 4 million yuan for the purchase of melamine testing equipment.

At present, China’s four major departments directly involved in food safety supervision—agriculture, quality inspection, industry and commerce, and the health sector—are accelerating the construction of corresponding inspection and inspection systems. Our country’s original foundation is thin, so the current investment is very strong. Jiang Shiqiang gave a conservative estimate: The investment in the above four sectors and localities will total about 30 billion yuan in the next two or three years, and this is not counting the direct investment of food production companies. About 70% of these investments are used to purchase scientific instruments and equipment of various departments, food and agricultural product safety inspection and inspection agencies.

Jiang Shiqiang said: "In the face of a market demand of more than 30 billion yuan, since China's scientific instrument industry is still in the childish stage, major international companies are adopting various powerful 'combination fists' to control the high-end market of China's scientific instruments. Today, the main technical support in China’s food safety and security system—scientific equipment and equipment is still dependent on developed countries.The construction of such a safety and security system will inevitably follow the developed countries’ continuous improvement of food safety standards and scientific instrumentation technology levels. It's endless, and overall, it's very dangerous because the foundation is subject to people."

Scientific instrument industry "internal and external problems"

Jiang Shiqiang described to reporters the situation of "internal and external problems" in China's scientific instrument industry.

Food safety is the detection of micrograms, nanograms, and even picograms of residue on a large number of samples, with very complex matrices, requiring high equipment and equipment.

The scientific and technical performance of our country's instruments is low, so the food safety inspection and inspection center above the prefecture-level city is seeking convergence with international standards and requirements. The main equipment is almost imported.

Many high-end scientific instruments are still blank in our country. Today, the price of a single unit is more than 500,000 yuan, especially key equipment such as high-performance chromatograph/mass spectrometer, spectrum/mass spectrometer, amino acid analyzer, and pathogenic disease, with unit prices ranging from 1 million to 2.5 million yuan. Bacterial identification system, GPC system and high-end centrifuge, electrophoresis system, quantitative PCR instrument, SPR system, etc., China is still in a blank state. And these high-end equipment and equipment, internationally renowned companies have many patented technology protection.

At present, almost all internationally renowned scientific instrument companies have established large-scale production and R&D bases in Shanghai, Suzhou, Kunshan and other places to absorb Chinese professionals and carry out localized production in China. With their advantages in technology, capital, and talent, they not only occupy the high-end product market, but also produce mid-range products with significant performance advantages, participate in tendering and procurement of equipment and equipment in China, and squeeze the domestic and new products that have just started.

China has not formed a scientific instrument innovation mechanism tightly integrated with production, research, and research. Commonly there are scientific instrument research and development achievements, while rare new products have been launched and the original product's technical performance has been greatly improved. China's scientific instrument companies have a thin technical base and weak new product R&D strength, all crowded on a few varieties. Under the current fierce market competition conditions, there is a lack of norms for healthy competition in the industry. In order to survive, and subject to profit space constraints, we have to reduce performance, compete for prices, and create vicious competition.

Our country urgently needs to establish an innovation system for scientific instruments. According to Jiang Shiqiang, the state's investment in scientific instrument research and development is insufficient, and the overall dislocation between production, study and research, and lack of policies to support the development of the scientific instrument industry. He proposed that we should establish a scientific innovation system for our country's scientific instruments based on the market orientation, the enterprise as the core, and the combination of production, study, and use to accelerate the industrialization of scientific instruments in China. “This is a strategy for building a food safety assurance system in China. Sexual decision."

Jiang Shiqiang believes that, first of all, a scientific instrument R&D center combining production, education and research should be established as soon as possible. He said: "China has invested some funds in the research and development of scientific instruments in the '863', '973', Natural Science Foundation, research projects, and support projects. It has explored and achieved many results. The key to building a research and development center today is not to discuss But it's about organizing synergy; it's not about investing more, it's about how to tap the potential of various fields and departments; it's not about timing, it's about acting right now.” He believes that the preferred project should be positioned so far that our country is still blank. Urgently needed and able to get rid of projects that are dependent on developed countries, such as mass spectrometers and microbiological, pathogenic bacteria automatic identification systems.

Jiang Shiqiang also suggested that the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Finance should jointly provide funds and policies in various ways. It is preferable to have projects that have market prospects and urgent needs, but also have basic, scientific achievements, and urgent need for industrialization. Industrialization bases, such as enzyme-linked immunoassays and kits, ICP, portable laser Raman apparatus, SPR apparatus, biochip technology platforms and kits, and portable microfluidic chip systems.

Jiang Shiqiang's last suggestion is to first select several types or types of scientific instruments and corresponding enterprises with distinctive features, good foundations, and market prospects, as a pilot for establishing industrial alliances, and establish a basic industrial chain of mutual help and interaction and harmonious competition. In relation to inspections and inspections of food safety, he suggested setting up the following industrial alliances first: the Alliance for Chromatography and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry Industry; the Alliance of Atomic Absorption and Atomic Fluorescence Industry; the Coalition of Biochemical Instrument Industry; and the sample preparation equipment. Industry Alliance; Reagent Product Industry Alliance; On-site Rapid Inspection Instrument Equipment Industry Alliance.