Overview
The Thailand Medical Device industry is currently valued at around USD 230 million. The market in comparison to Thailand Pharmaceutical Industry remains disproportionately small despite strong growth rates. The Thailand Medical device Industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15% and touch the USD 1 billion mark by 2024. The present landscape is primarily import driven with import contributing close to 75% of the market. The domestic market caters to low-value disposables and supplies space, whereas importers dominate the costly and high end medical equipments with extensive service networks.
Exports and Investments
The Thai medical device industry is highly fragmented with close to 1000 domestic firms primarily manufacturing technology products. However in recent years there has been a paradigm shift in the approach and companies have expanded operations to produce cost-effective, medium end medical devices. Opto Circuits is a classical example of thai companies becoming technology intensive thereby producing high quality, cost-effective medical devices. Opto’s focus towards knowledge intensive medical device development is showcased by its patent portfolio , It has an impressive 168 patents granted and 53 pending patents.
Owing to huge cost pressures and completion from China and Asiapacific countries, the Thai companies have started transitioning up the value chain into the “Medium Technology” segment. This augurs well for Medical devices future in Thailand as this would imply Technology innovation and high margin product portfolio.