MEDILINES Distributors Inc. expects demand for medical devices to remain strong for the rest of the year as the completion of healthcare infrastructure gradually progresses.
“The medical equipment industry is expected to expand in the coming years with the government’s continued support in enhancing healthcare facilities nationwide. The Philippine Health Facility Development Plan 2020- 2040, which aspires to close our country’s health infrastructure and service gaps, is underway, starting with the building of new and the expansion of current healthcare facilities,” the company said.
Medilines said these health centers will soon equip themselves with critical devices that can address the country’s top causes of morbidity, as well as prevalent infectious diseases. Of utmost urgency include devices that can detect, treat, and monitor cancer and kidney diseases, which continue to increase in incidences.
“As these facilities are completed, Medilines looks forward on securing contracts to furnish these facilities with our state-of-the-art medical equipment, adding to our current list of newly awarded and ongoing projects,” said Patricia Yambing, Medilines president.
Medilines’ ongoing cancer therapy equipment projects are scheduled to be completed by end of this year while the diagnostic imaging projects have started implementation quarter three of this year.
The company expects sales renal care devices to more than double in sales from both newly built and newly expanded dialysis centers nationwide.
The company is also ramping up its dialysis business to meet the increased demand for treatments nationwide driven by PhilHealth’s expansion of hemodialysis coverage to 156 sessions from 90 sessions per year.
“We are confident in achieving our full year topline and bottom-line targets given our robust project pipelines that will come on-stream for the remainder of this year. We remain bullish with the industry as we have also seen various tailwinds in the country’s growing healthcare market where we are part of. For this year, since most hospitals invested on infrastructure on the first half, procurement of supplies and equipment are expected to happen in the second half,” said Yambing.
