Domestic scientific instruments: Is my spring far away?

When we saw this unprecedented opportunity, we cannot ignore the fact that the Chinese market has become a “fat” for multinational instrument companies to compete for. And there is still a considerable gap in the stability and reliability of domestic high-end equipment. The next five years will be a golden period for the development of China's instrument industry. If you do not seize this opportunity, the entire industry may be lost. This is not alarmist.

- Wang Dayuan, scientist of Liu Changkuan, secretary general of the Analytical Instruments Branch of the China Instrument and Instrument Society, once pointed out: "Machine is a tool to transform the world, and instrument is a tool to understand the world."

According to a data provided by the China Instrument and Control Society, in China, 90% or even 100% of the market share of high-grade scientific instruments is occupied by foreign brands. Domestically-occupied instruments occupy only the middle and low-end product markets in China. Even the middle and low-end product markets “are facing the market impact of foreign brands”.

"To break through the many obstacles in China's industrialization process, the development of the instrument industry is an inevitable support." said Liu Changkuan, secretary general of the Analytical Instruments Branch of the China Instrument and Control Society.

Who is pricing the market?

“The domestic instrument industry has developed rapidly in the recent 10 years, but the high-end instrument market still occupies a monopoly position in foreign products,” Wu Youhua, secretary-general of the Instrument Society, told reporters.

Statistics show that among the previous Nobel Prizes in natural science, 68.4% of the physics prizes, 74.6% of the chemical prizes, and 90% of the biomedical awards were made with various advanced scientific instruments. However, in China, "more than 90% of high-end scientific instruments still rely on imports."

Liu Changkuan said: “The current situation is a heavy topic for the industry to worry about.” But precisely because of this embarrassing situation, it created the "domestic equipment to determine the market price of the facts."

Liu Changkuan explained that many foreign instrument products rely on their own monopoly position and also manipulate the market price of the instrument in China. If domestic companies can independently develop the product, they can change the situation in which the product price is controlled by foreign products. "The GC-MS3100 GC-(4-quadrupole) mass spectrometer developed by East-West Analytical Instruments Co., Ltd. is a very convincing case."

According to Su Yansong, project manager of Beijing East-West Analytical Instrument Co., Ltd., the GC-MS3100 GC-(4-pole) mass spectrometer is the first commercially available gas-mass combined instrument in China, and its technical specifications are close to The current international advanced technology level can fully meet the analysis needs of most domestic users. “The advent of this product has filled the gaps in the domestic research and development of this product.” For a long time, the price of international high-end instrument products was at least more than twice that of domestic similar products. After the advent of GC-MS3100, the market price of foreign similar products rapidly declined. . "It can be said that the product can not only replace imports in certain application areas, but also rewrite the history of the product market pricing by foreign products."

It was also learned that the first portable fast-spectrometer PORS-15 with its own intellectual property rights in China has been widely used in agriculture, food, health inspection, disease control, life sciences, and environmental protection after being out of General Research and Development's R&D laboratory. , Geology and some emerging technology industries, "this product also changed the market conditions of similar products being priced by foreign instruments."

The road to breaking through domestic and diplomatic difficulties "Home-made instruments have achieved remarkable results in certain areas, but they are still struggling to survive in a trapped environment both inside and outside the country." Su Yansong said that when he was interviewed, he felt "the topic was very sad".

Another data provided by the Institute of Instrumentation confirms the view of Su Yansong. In the pilot project of the Ministry of Agriculture equipped with nearly 1,000 county-level agricultural product quality inspection stations during the “Eleventh Five-Year Plan” period, more than 90% of the testing equipment came from abroad. “The remaining 10% are only domestic bottles and cans. The project is only in an auxiliary position, and Liu Changkuan is also very distressed. "With such a level of detection, domestically produced instruments can do exactly that, but many bidding projects do not have the right to speak in domestic instruments."

“The misunderstanding of understanding is an important bottleneck restricting the development of domestically produced instruments.” A person in charge of Yizhong International Media told the reporter: “Homegrown instruments were extremely unbalanced in supply and demand in the market 10 years ago. There are indeed many products that have been overbuilt. Now most companies have focused on high-tech products, but many companies even have departments. Has been stuck in the fixed-thinking concept of 'domestic equipment quality but off'."

In addition, as a big cake in the instrument industry, the domestic tendering and government procurement projects do not give domestic-made equipment any inclination to adopt policies, even to foreign products. "Government procurement has been limited by steps, the pressure to spend procurement funds within a specified time, and some industry experts have been driven by certain interests to negate the use of domestic instruments. Many procurement organizations have been forced to choose foreign instruments. This has not only caused excessive Consumption has also caused the abnormal development of the industry to a considerable extent." Wu Youhua said.

In fact, the abnormal development of the industry has truly affected the overall level of the industry. Liu Changkuan said that apart from a few key enterprises, most companies are taking the path of low-cost expansion. Low-cost expansion mainly depends on low-cost labor, low barriers to entry, and it is likely to cause disorderly competition. At the same time, it also affects companies’ sense of urgency for technology investment, talent absorption training, and after-sales service improvement.

"In this kind of internal and diplomatic difficulties, the company must make breakthroughs, and it can only be a vigorous climb." Su Yansong said that the GC-MS3100 gas chromatography-quadrupole mass spectrometer is the result of independent research and development by the company. And this achievement has gone ahead of the national research and development achievements. “The domestic equipment’s creativity and R&D capability are not bad, but the financial pressure is too high. This is, to be honest, there is no foreign company’s financial resources, which restricts the development of domestic manufacturers. In addition, some key components and raw material quality also affect the overall domestic equipment. Quality, so to improve the quality of the instrument is a systematic project, that is, to improve the raw material, processing level, personnel level (including design, manufacturing, application), etc., do not underestimate any small component on the instrument, including a small Small switches will affect the overall product quality, as well as the multiple, scattered, and weak market characteristics of the entire industry and government-funded sprinkler-type project funding, which cannot effectively change the current status of this industry. The relevant departments need to focus on supporting key enterprises that have competitiveness so that they can become bigger and stronger."

After an unprecedented opportunity for painstaking thinking, perhaps, "Home-made equipment will usher in the best time in the history of the industry."

Wang Daxuan once said: "For a long time, we have spent a lot of money to buy instruments, but we are repeating others' experiments." It turns out that we didn't buy core technology and we didn't buy the most advanced instruments and equipment used by our front-line researchers. Most of them are "mature goods" from developed countries. "To seize the commanding heights of technology strategy, domestic instruments urgently need to break through in a number of important areas." This also provides unprecedented opportunities and challenges for domestic instruments." The opportunity is not limited to this. “As an important support method for strategic emerging industries such as energy conservation, environmental protection and biology, scientific instruments and equipment need to be bigger and stronger. The research and development of medium and high-end equipment can not only change the status quo of low-end positioning of domestic instruments, but also enhance the core competitiveness of enterprises. The only way to go."

What is particularly exciting is that “the demand for equipment and equipment in the industries of quality inspection, environmental protection, health, and agriculture has increased substantially, providing a huge market and rare opportunity for the development of domestically produced instruments.” Talking about the future of the industry, Su Yansong’s face began to flash a confident smile. “We will use our strengths to build this bus.”

Apart from the market demand, a more gratifying phenomenon is that the relevant departments such as the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Development and Reform Commission, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology have made it clear that they will increase support for the development of the industry, especially independent innovation brands. It is understood that in the next five years, only the National Natural Science Foundation of China will increase its investment in R&D for scientific instruments from the previous 100 million yuan to 1 billion yuan. "This effort is unprecedented." And related departments set up a number of research and development special projects, including the “National Special Scientific Instruments and Equipment Development Special Project” to be established by the Ministry of Science and Technology and the “Special Scientific Instruments and Equipment Research Special Project” established by the National Natural Science Foundation.

“When we see this unprecedented opportunity, we cannot ignore that the Chinese market has become a 'fat' that multinational instrument companies compete for. And there is still a considerable gap in stability and reliability of domestic high-end equipment. The next five years are Chinese instruments. The golden age of industry development, if you do not seize this opportunity, the entire industry may be overshadowed." Liu Changkuan stressed that this is by no means alarmist.