CIIE in the eyes of global CEOs | Edwards Lifesciences: Taking deep roots and being in motion with China

Editor's notes:

It is the fifth time for the China International Import Expo to take place in Shanghai, and CIIE has been increasingly recognized by global businesses as a great platform to get connected with China and beyond. Again, we invite some of them to voice their opinions, which is to shed light upon the CIIE this year!

China's hosting of the 2022 China International Import Expo underscores the country's commitment to further opening-up its economy and promoting economic globalization in a productive way.

For Edwards Lifesciences, this year marks our third time participating at CIIE. This platform has proven to play a key role in facilitating and fostering international exchange, as well as the venue to showcase our breakthrough technologies in health care that are designed to support the country's goals to achieve better care for all. This year will be no different!

As a global leader in medical technology, Edwards Lifesciences strives to be a trusted partner in every country we operate, and we dedicate our efforts to contributing to a healthier China. Our goal is to provide exceptional quality and service of surgical valves, transcatheter aortic heart valves and critical care monitoring technologies – all driven by excellent clinical outcomes. We are committed to working with physicians and academic institutions across China to improve access to our technology. We are hopeful that future economic growth in China will offer more Chinese patients' better access to advanced technologies that address unmet patient needs.

Attending CIIE has helped us significantly raise public awareness surrounding cardiovascular health especially structural heart, a pressing issue affecting many middle-aged and elderly Chinese residents. The event has also opened the door to many great business opportunities. For instance, several core Edwards products including transcatheter aortic valve system SAPIEN 3, INSPIRIS RESILIA Aortic Valve and HemoSphere monitoring platform with the Hypotension Prediction Index (HPI) technology, etc., have gained approval and were subsequently launched in China.

Last year, Edwards and Mindray, a leading local medical device company in China, entered a strategic partnership to develop an innovative interface solution (FloTrac Interface Solution) to integrate Edwards FloTrac series products into Mindray's BeneVision N series medical monitors. Through CIIE, this product was able to launch successfully in the Chinese market this past June and has officially landed in major hospitals in Beijing and Hebei.

We are proud that Edwards has been in China, and Shanghai specifically, for more than 20 years. My impression of Shanghai can be summed up with 3 words: innovation, inclusion, and advancement with time. Shanghai's package of policies has helped to optimize its business environment with deepening reform, facilitating innovation, encouraging inclusion and diversity, and keeping pace with the changing world.

China has always been an important and strategic market for Edwards. We have always believed in China's vast potential. Recently Edwards set up a new legal entity in Hong Kong that will help further accelerate the introduction of more cutting-edge and high-quality innovative products into mainland China through the synergy of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and favorable policies such as the "Hong Kong and Macao Medicines and Devices" policy to further meet the unmet needs of Chinese patients.

Edwards is proud of our unique patient-focused innovation strategy because we believe there are large unmet needs among structural heart patients and the critically ill. In recent years, the upgrading of China's consumption structure has created a broad space for the development of advanced, high-quality, and customized health services and the scientific and technological innovation has provided strong support for improving health levels.

At the end of 2021, people in China over 60 years old reached 267 million, or 18.7 percent of the total population. This number is expected to exceed 300 million by 2025 and 400 million by 2033. China will be one of the world's aging countries. The gap between supply and demand for care services continues to widen, and the demand for high quality medical and health services will increase dramatically, in which that Edwards can contribute more to address unmet Chinese patients' needs.

Medical technology saves lives. Edwards will continue our investment and accelerate the introduction of innovative therapies in China, expanding technology offerings from surgical valves, transcatheter aortic heart valves and critical care monitoring technologies to new and innovative transcatheter treatments for mitral and tricuspid valve disease, bettering serving patients, since it is what drives us, and it's important to us every single day!