Hang cloud sails straight to the sea
Jiangxi Tekang Technology Co., Ltd. is a national high-tech enterprise specializing in the R & D, production and sales of medical testing instruments and reagents. In just 14 years of development, with the joint efforts of Mr. Zhou Honghua and his team, the company has developed into a well-known enterprise in the medical device manufacturing industry with assets of nearly 100 million yuan and sales of nearly 200 million yuan from the loan start-up fee of 100000 yuan at the time of establishment, single product and rented plant. The company has two science and Technology Parks in Shanghai and Nanchang, In particular, the independent innovation in the field of medical testing instruments is well-known - successfully developed domestic blood cell analyzer and reagent for blood cell analyzer with independent intellectual property rights. During this period, Tekang people performed many touching stories, as well as the hardships and happiness, which are unknown. Perhaps, only the natural boulder engraved with "science and technology serving the country" standing in front of Tekang science and technology complex building can comment on all this.
Chun Meng
In the spring of 1992, after the unprecedented Southern tour of Comrade Xiaoping, the spring of great scientific, technological and economic development came. Many intellectuals across the country were encouraged and actively participated in it. Mr. Zhou Honghua and his entrepreneurial team have also become a member of this rolling tide. At that time, the Ministry of Health issued Order No. 18, which abolished the previous 35 test methods and recommended the use of clinical chemical reagents based on enzymatic analysis. So the founders wanted to use their expertise in Enzymology to develop a complete set of clinical chemical reagents. While changing their own destiny, they want to repay the country with their knowledge and technology. Therefore, Tekang technology engraved the humanistic brand of typical Chinese traditional intellectuals at the beginning of its establishment - "sincere entrepreneurship, science and technology serving the country". With a bank loan of 100000 yuan as the start-up fee, I rented several humble offices in Nanchang University as the place for office and experiment. It is a good start. The project is mainly based on biochemical reagents.
Start a business
Like all start-ups, Tekang technology was not lucky to avoid all the difficulties encountered in the early stage of establishment, such as shortage of funds and manpower.
In the face of difficulties, all Tekang people made more concerted efforts, worked hard day and night, and completed the installation and production of dry powder biochemical reagent production line at the fastest speed. In 1993, it also overcame the danger of wage delay due to the failure of funds to return in time.
In the same year, the company discovered the great potential of supporting reagents for blood cell analyzer. At that time, blood cell analyzer reagents were completely imported, and the price was extremely expensive. The price of a set of reagents was nearly 10000 yuan, but the service of imported reagent suppliers was not timely, which brought a heavy burden to hospitals and patients, caused trouble for operators, and consumed a large amount of foreign exchange every year. Therefore, Tekang people decided to shift the company's focus from biochemical reagents to supporting reagents for blood cell analyzer, and focus on R & D to tackle key problems. Since there was no corresponding blood cell analyzer for comparative test, in more than a year from 1993 to 1994, Tekang's R & D personnel ran between major hospitals across the country, slept on the train (in order to save money, they didn't take a sleeper), got off and rushed to the hospital for test. In order to make full use of these imported blood cell analyzers. After this year, Tekang technology conducted in-depth research on the ultrastructure of leukocytes after hemolysis and the hemolysis process of blood cells, found the phenomena of "stratification" of cell membrane and "increase of electron density on membrane surface" in the hemolysis process, and systematically clarified the change law in the hemolysis process of blood cells and the action mechanism of hemolytic agent on leukocyte classification. In August 1995, the Research Report of blood cell analyzer reagent was published at the Wuyishan National Inspection academic conference, which was supported by Professor Zhu Zhongyong, chairman of the Inspection Branch of the Chinese Medical Association at that time and formed the resolution of the conference, The content of the resolution is (original) "if the domestic developed reagent is strictly controlled and proved to be completely consistent with the determination results of the original reagent (including the leukocyte classification and three histograms of normal and abnormal samples), and the qualified products are identified by experts and spot checked by relevant departments, it can also be used", so as to determine the localization process of blood cell analyzer reagent in China.
From 1995 to 1996, with a sense of historical mission of "vowing to drive 'foreign water' out of the Chinese market", the entrepreneurial team of the company successfully solved many quality problems of reagents fed back by the market, overcome many process problems, and finally improved the process of reagent production line, realized the large-scale production of blood cell analyzer reagents, and was the first to pass the quality verification of the temporary inspection center of the Ministry of health. The products are fully applicable to all kinds of imported blood cell analyzers. The product types have developed to more than 20 series and more than 70 products. Subsequently, our company published a large number of papers and participated in many academic conferences (see the table below) to introduce relevant technologies. In 1997, the effect of hemolytic agent on leukocyte morphology written by the company's researchers was published in the Chinese Journal of medical laboratory. In the same year, according to the requirements of GMP, the domestic large-scale blood cell analyzer reagent purification production workshop (with an annual output of 4 million liters) was built, and passed the acceptance of the national Spark plan and the appraisal of scientific and technological achievements in 1998; In 1999, the project of reagent for blood cell count analyzer won the first prize of provincial scientific and technological progress. Then it was included in the national Torch Program project and national key new products in 2000, and worked with the medical device testing center of the State Drug Administration to draft China's first blood cell analyzer reagent industry standard.
Tekang's reagent products are on the market, which has a great impact on foreign products. Foreign enterprises use various means to control and stifle the development of domestic products. For example, in 1997, when our company participated in the Academic Conference on clinical inspection held in Huangshan, the general manager of Hong Kong Branch of Coulter company openly and provocatively asked why we could use snowball reagent on their instruments. However, with the support of domestic users, the company's "snowball" brand blood cell analyzer reagent fully occupied the market and successfully squeezed "foreign water" out of the country. At the same time, it also laid a good economic foundation for the later development of Tekang.
Stick to
Perhaps it is the fate of Chinese enterprises. In the long and arduous process of starting a business from small to large, there will always be some different voices and business differences, which will lead to the division of enterprises and even the disappearance of enterprises. Tekang technology has a similar situation. Fortunately, Tekang has weathered the crisis smoothly and adhered to the development direction of the company.
1996 was a key year of independent innovation for the development of supporting reagents for the newborn "snowball" brand blood cell analyzer. After the product came out in 1995, the company's market strategy is to ensure the market share of Hunan, Hubei, Guangxi and Jiangxi provinces, stabilize the market, radiate the surrounding markets, and then enter the national market. However, there were problems in the four provinces that the company wanted to ensure, and users successively reported the quality problems of reagents. Through the technical analysis of the company's technicians, it is found that these quality problems are mainly caused by the incomplete production process. Therefore, the entrepreneurial team of the company mainly focuses on the technical breakthrough of perfect production process and the solution of after-sales service. These two tasks require a lot of money, and the company's sales are facing great difficulties. As a result, the company was in trouble.
Coincidentally, before the above problems appeared, the company's entrepreneurial team had planned to explore the field of medical instrument trade, trying to master more working capital through the distribution of foreign instruments. Therefore, the company has obtained the OEM general agency right of American product BT-2100 blood cell analyzer, and the first batch of equipment will arrive.
In the context of the company's difficulties, there are differences in the business philosophy of the company's entrepreneurial team. Some people believe that we should give up independent innovation, give up the supporting reagent project of blood cell analyzer, and take the road of all-round development of trade. The entrepreneurial team of the company had a heated debate on how to develop the enterprise in the next step, but failed to form a unified consensus. Therefore, companies that have just embarked on the road of development have to be divided into two. Those who advocate the road of trade development leave the company and develop on their own.
Fortunately, in the face of the great pressure of "separation", Mr. Zhou Honghua and other founders did not shrink back. They should carry out the development idea of adhering to independent innovation and investing funds in R & D to the end; With a solemn and stirring sense of historical mission, we insist on completing the R & D and industrialization of supporting reagents for domestic blood cell analyzer. Adhering to the road of independent innovation and developing high-tech products.
After such a major change, the company's course did not change due to human factors. The entrepreneurial team of the company began to focus on the market dynamics of domestic medical testing instruments again. It was found that there was a strong demand for trisection automatic blood cell analyzer in the domestic market, but it was completely dependent on imports. To this end, the company carried out project investigation on whether to develop domestic blood cell analyzer, and formally formed a project research and development team in 1998 to tackle the fully automatic trisection blood cell analyzer that the state had invested hundreds of millions of yuan, involving interdisciplinary and difficult technology.
fruits in autumn
Perhaps it is that through too many hardships and difficulties, Tekang people's perseverance and hard work have finally paid off, and the enterprise has ushered in a period of rapid growth.
After two years of research and development (1998 ~ 1999), the company finally made a major breakthrough in micropore technology, anti-interference technology, mathematical model, embedded software system and other aspects of automatic three cluster blood cell analyzer, so as to grasp the core technology of this kind of instrument. In the following days, the operation of the project yielded fruitful results.
At the beginning of 2000, the domestic automatic three cluster blood cell analyzer was successfully developed, and the first prototype was displayed at the medical laboratory industry branch of the National Health Industry Enterprise Management Association held in Taiyuan. Subsequently, the prototype passed the type test of the State Food and drug administration. In October 2000, our company participated in the fifth academic conference of the Chinese society of Laboratory Science held in Dalian Xinghai Convention and Exhibition Center, and released the news of our development and production of overseas automatic blood cell analyzer. As soon as the news came out, authoritative experts came to congratulate and spoke highly of the instrument of this project. During the meeting, our company's booth was adjacent to the manufacturer's booth. Our company had a positive confrontation with a Japanese manufacturer and clearly displayed the slogan of "made in China", which immediately reduced the selling price by 4 ­～ 50000 yuan / set.
In 2001, he obtained the medical device registration certificate.
From 2001 to 2002, the pilot production of TEK series blood cell analyzer was completed. The project is included in the torch plan project and innovation fund project of the Ministry of science and technology, and the State supports 1.2 million yuan free of charge.
From 2003 to 2005, Tek series blood cell analyzer was successively listed in various national projects such as the high-tech industrialization demonstration project of the national development and Reform Commission and the electronic development fund project of the Ministry of information industry, with a state subsidy of 10 million yuan. Passed ISO9001 quality system certification and CE certification; Build a production line with an annual output of 2000 blood cell analyzers to realize large-scale production.
In 2005, Tek series automatic blood cell analyzer began to be exported. The company develops the whole blood cell imaging analysis system.
On July 3, 2006, the Department of science and technology of Jiangxi Province organized an expert group led by academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Chinese Academy of engineering to appraise the scientific and technological achievements of the project of "research and development of complete set of automatic blood cell analysis technology and equipment". The appraisal committee unanimously recognized that the project has reached the international advanced level, which has changed the situation that reagents and instruments in this field are monopolized by imported products.
The success of this achievement appraisal meeting shows the success of Tekang technology in the field of whole blood cell analysis; It shows that the company has embarked on a scientific and technological development road of independent innovation of high-end medical device products relying on its own strength, which can be described as "ten years of sword casting and fruitful results".
The project won the first prize of provincial scientific and technological progress at the end of 2006.
In 2007, it won the national science and technology progress award.
The company has made great progress in other fields. In view of the typical characteristics of "the medical device manufacturing industry involves many marginal interdisciplinary disciplines, and once developed successfully, the accumulated mature technology and successful experience can be extended to other products", the company has successively successfully developed and put into operation TC series semi-automatic biochemical analyzer, full-automatic electrolyte analyzer, "snowball" brand series biochemical reagents and urine test strips.
The company's assets exceeded 100 million yuan and sales exceeded 200 million yuan. It invested and built two science and Technology Parks in Nanchang and Shanghai respectively.
The company's gratifying scene further strengthened the Tekang team's adherence to the concept of independent innovation and determined "independent innovation" as the company's long-term development strategy. Therefore, the company has specially formulated the development plan of Tekang technology related technology development, which clearly stipulates that the fund for new product development will be 8 ~ 10% of the sales revenue. Relying on the company's product development center and in combination with the scientific research platforms such as in vitro diagnostic reagent Biomedical Engineering Center established by the Provincial Department of science and technology in the company, carry out the development of medical testing instruments, in vitro diagnostic reagents and medical information system, so as to provide a stronger guarantee for independent innovation.
Take off
As Professor Wu Qiyao, chairman of the medical device branch of China Electronics Society, said: "Tekang technology has two points worth mentioning. First, Tekang's products are the results of independent technology research and development, which is the result of years of technology accumulation. Second, it also feels very good. Tekang has a complete set of technology, which starts from clinical needs, starts from the bottom up, starts with reagents, and finally goes to the development of instruments."
Tekang's successful path of independent innovation and development of science and technology well explains the connotation of "the main body of scientific and technological innovation and independent innovation is the enterprise". The company will continue to give full play to the role of independent innovation of enterprises, increase investment and efforts in scientific and technological development, accelerate the construction of Jiangxi Tekang Biomedical Engineering Research Institute and Shanghai Tekang biomedical engineering R & D center, and establish a joint R & D center with Huazhong University of science and technology in Wuhan. At the same time, relying on the post doctoral scientific research workstation of the Ministry of personnel and the biomedical testing engineering center of the Provincial Department of science and technology, we will carry out in-depth research and development of biomedical engineering technologies and products. We will continue to strengthen cooperation with well-known domestic universities and take the road of combining production, study and research. Strengthen the awareness of independent intellectual property rights and encourage enterprise scientific and technological personnel to actively apply for patents.
The light boat has passed ten thousand mountains, and Tekang technology has entered a new period of strategic development. We will actively do a good job in the overseas export market, use the strength of the capital market, rely on management and technological innovation, pay close attention to the two major projects of whole blood cell imaging analysis system and imaging analysis of imaging, build a Chinese medical device aircraft carrier enterprise, and welcome the new take-off of Tekang company.
——Reprint the typical case of the development road of China's medical device industry