Bright Future for Taiwan Dental Impalnt Industry with Brand Alliance Aiming at the Global Market

The traditional industry in southern Taiwan mainly bases on machine processing. Specifically, a number of screw makers in Gangshan of Kaohsiung have pushed Taiwan to the title of "kingdom of fasteners". Screws look similar to dental implants, and a kilogram of screws are less than NTD 1,000. However, a single dental plant is over NTD 10 thousand. Thus, dental implants become appropriate high-value products for Taiwanese makers that want to transform.

Since 2006, Taiwan Metal Industries Research & Development Center (MIRDC) has been funded by the government for the 6 main strategies towards emerging nations, and it has been arranging the medical industry in southern Taiwan, continuously helping a few companies to tranform and invest in dental implants. "Full Processing Technology of Dental Implant System", developed by MIRDC, also helped companies shorten the R&D period and elevate their global competitiveness through technical transformation and education.

Based on the level of medical equipment risk, dental implants are calassified as "Class III". To manufacturers, the investment in medical equipment is very high. In addition, from R&D to sales, dental implants have to pass checks on designs, QC, testing, and so on. Among the testings, physical tests, chemical tests, functionality tests, bio-compatibility tests, animal tests, and human tests are time-consuming and costly. When the product is finished, it has to acquire organizational accreditations, such as Taiwanese TFD, U.S. FDA, European CE, or Chinese SFDA before it can be sold worldwide. So far, there are 14 dental implant makers which have acquired Taiwanese TFDA, 3 makers with U.S. FDA 510K accreditaion, and 4 makers with CE Mark accreditation.

After getting the approvals for product selling, the marketing of products is the key point. With the rise of South Korea, which has a great internal demand in the market, Korean doctors are willing to use domestically made dental implants and the local Korean manufacturers choose the lower-price strategy to go toward the international market, even set up factories in the U.S. in order to upgrade their brand awareness. On the contrary, the development of dental implants in Taiwan is relatively short and lack of clinical experiments, moreover, the price of dental implants is similar to those of Korean manufacturers, which all resulted in the hesitation of Taiwanese doctors to take a further step. Only a few of Taiwanese doctors are willing to try, so manufacturers should be well prepared to“face the fight in the long term.”

The dental implant manufacturers in Taiwan are active in promoting their brand awareness locally and abroad as well as involving themselves in the development of dental products, expanding facilities and equipment. They also extend the marketing to India, Southeast Asia, the U.S., and China. With the help of brands alliance, they can enter the international market to promote Taiwanese brands and increase the competitiveness of Taiwanese dental products industry.