Wego's Dialysis Business Seeks Hong Kong IPO in MedTech Boom

Key Takeaways: Weigao Blood Purification filed for a Hong Kong IPO soon after bringing in well-known institutional investors The company is a domestic leader in China’s blood purification industry across a range of products, including blood filters and dialysis tubing By Molly Wen China’s medical technology market is booming and looks set to keep on growing, driven by accelerating demand from an ageing population. With big profits at stake, Chinese medical device companies are seeking to dominate an industry that initially relied on imported products. The business of blood purification is a case in point. Power has been shifting towards domestic providers of dialysis equipment, spurred on by an expansion of health insurance coverage and by policies to boost domestic production of high-end medical devices Looking to ride that wave is Shandong Weigao Blood Purification Products Co. Ltd ., a leading Chinese medical device maker that has applied tolist onthe Hong Kong Stock Exchange for the first time, with Citigroup, Huatai International and China Renaissance as joint sponsors. Blood purification, also known as dialysis, is the main therapy for patients with acute or chronic renal failure, when a patient’s kidneys are too damaged to filter waste products from the bloodstream, causing chemical imbalances in the blood. The patients can fall into a coma or develop other life-threatening symptoms. For patients with end-stage renal disease, dialysis or a kidney transplant are the only two treatment options. However, dialysis is more common in China, as the supply of transplant kidneys is very limited for the 3.6 million patients with the acute condition. Weigao Blood Purification supplies products for the two major types of dialysis: hemodialysis, in which blood is pumped out of the body through a machine and returned by tubes into the body, and peritoneal dialysis, in which the lining of the abdomen is used as a natural filter using fluids washed in and out of the body. The company provides medical devices such as hemodialysis machines, blood filters known as dialyzers or “artificial kidneys”, dialysis tubing, peritoneal dialysis fluids and other related products. Weigao Blood Purification ... Full story available on Benzinga.com