It seems that the X-ray tube industry has been undergoing intense changes recently as Dunlee moved its business to Germany, Varex Imaging shifted Varian Medical Systems and Richarlison Medical to the manufacturing sector.
In June 2017, Dunlee, an X-ray and CT component company acquired by Philips in 2001, announced that it would close its generator, pipe fittings and assemblies (GTC) factory in Aurora, Illinois. This business will be transferred to Philips' existing factory in Hamburg, Germany, mainly providing services for the X-ray product OEM market. According to Philips, due to the significant decline in the replacement market for generators, tubes and components in recent years, they had no choice but to push forward this transformation. Dunlee responded to the impact of this change by having original equipment manufacturers lower product prices and become more proactive in introducing second brands and competitors.
In July 2017, Dunlee announced that its call service center would be merged with AllParts Medical, an accessory supplier under Philips. The sales and service representatives of its alternative business in the United States will continue to be discontinued through AllParts, which will continue to serve as Dunlee's guide and provider in this area. AllParts has traditionally been the single point of contact for all Philips North American third-party parts processes, covering all imaging products, including ultrasound.
Dunlee sold his hose business
On February 20, 2018, Philips officially announced the sale of its manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, to Chronos Imaging, an American medical equipment and healthcare solutions company whose main business includes third-party computed tomography (CT) replacement tubes and related assets. As part of the deal, Chronos Imaging will continue to supply third-party CT replacement tubes to Philips and will continue to sell them under the Dunlee brand. This agreement helps further enhance Philips' commitment to the third-party AC tube business and improve its competitiveness in this field.
Chronos Imaging is supported by Rob Piconi, the founder of MESA Europe, who established the Pantheon Healthcare Group (now known as the brand Althea). Piconi, along with Permira, is a stakeholder. With the acquisition of TBS Group last year and the expansion of India and China into the once densely populated European market, Althea is rapidly becoming one of the world's leading enterprises in the field of equipment services for multiple medical suppliers.
The continuously growing OEM market
Although Dunlee intends to continue serving and investing in the alternative tube market, the brand is increasing its focus on the growing OEM market. The future of OEM business lies in focusing on customer needs and deepening the understanding of various ways components are applied respectively. What kind of results will such a strategy produce? At this year's Radiological Society of North America Annual Meeting, Dunlee hopes to present some "comprehensive treatment plans" to illustrate this point.
GE Healthcare also continues to invest in the OEM tube sector. One of the company's primary goals is to improve the lifespan of X-ray tubes. The company is investing in new pipe technology and modifying its existing pipe series to develop enhanced designs. As the medical industry expands, customers are facing cost pressure and are trying to maximize the utilization rate of equipment. They are seeking tubes with shorter lifespan to reduce the frequency of replacement. In addition, due to the reduced downtime caused by the lifespan of the tubes, a higher return on investment can be provided in the long run.
Liquid bearing ball tube
The most crucial part of an X-ray tube is heat management. 99% of the energy generated by the X-ray tube is converted into heat, and 1% is used for X-rays. Metal bearings and X-ray tubes with liquid bearings are designed to dissipate heat more effectively. However, as the metal bearing tube rotates on the ball bearing structure, this metal-metal contact is one of the failure points of the ball tube throughout its entire life cycle.
The new technology brings liquid bearings instead of metal ones, which can achieve high rotational speeds and reduce metal-to-metal contact points. Therefore, it can help us extend the service life of the ball tubes. Liquid bearing tubes improve image quality due to their faster rotational speed. They are also quieter because there is no rotational noise from the metal-to-metal contact of ball bearings.
GE launched a liquid bearing ball tube named Performix Plus in 2013 and a new Performix 40 Plus liquid bearing ball tube for Revolution EVO CT in 2015.
Varex Imaging Company
Varian Medical Systems announced in May 2016 that it plans to divest its imaging components business and introduce different trajectories for its imaging business and oncology business. The separate work was completed in January and the new company was named Varex. Varex has traditionally been a large-scale manufacturer of imaging components such as X-ray tubes, flat panel detectors, and high-voltage connectors, as well as imaging software and dedicated accelerators.
In May, Varex released its financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2017, marking its first financial year since its establishment. Revenue increased by 3% from 150 million US dollars in the previous year to 155 million US dollars. In the third quarter, the company received and issued a large number of orders for components including X-ray tubes, digital detectors and high-voltage generators, which will be capable of assembling hundreds of X-ray machine systems.
Varex has also extended its multi-year partnership with Toshiba Medical Systems and redefined a three-year pricing agreement for CT tubes, estimating that the sales of CT tubes will be between 345 million and 385 million US dollars. Varian continuously develops new X-ray imaging component technologies, which can enhance its R&D capabilities and shorten the time to market. Toshiba Medical has launched several new-generation imaging systems in the coming years.
A new force in the CT tube production industry
Richardson Healthcare announced its entry into the X-ray tube manufacturing sector in August 2014. At the same time, the company also appointed Pat Fitzgerald, the former president of Dunlee, as the executive vice president and general manager of Richardson Healthcare. Its target customers are to provide high-end medical imaging equipment services for hospitals and independent service institutions. The difficulty in providing alternative OEM services for CT lies in high-quality and cost-effective alternatives to X-ray tubes. In 2015, the company acquired International Medical Equipment and Services (IMES) to support its purpose of providing replacement parts, service training and technical support. Subsequent investments were focused on expanding the business's capabilities, with the replacement of CT tubes being the main part of this strategy. Richardson once suspended a large amount of investment in the professional manufacturing and processing equipment of high-pressure vacuum technology. This includes everything from high-temperature vacuum furnaces to clean assembly rooms and testing equipment. The company has also recently launched the P3 Advantage solution, which involves component supply agreements, enabling hospitals and ISO customers to obtain intercommunication CT tubes at any time. It is expected that the company will start entrusting its newly manufactured alternative CT tubes in early 2018.
Zhuhai Rcan is currently the only manufacturer in China capable of researching, developing, and producing CT tubes. Since the birth of the first domestically produced CT tube with complete independent intellectual property rights in 2013, it has successively completed the independent development and mass production and market launch of 3.5MHU and 4.0MHU thermal capacity CT tubes (having obtained a total of 4 medical device registration certificates). At the end of 2016, the new product of the "5.2M large-capacity CT Tube" of the 12th Five-Year Plan of the country was released. In 2020, the key research and development product of the "8.0M large-capacity CT Tube" of the 13th Five-Year Plan of the country was launched. Compared with foreign brands, the core components of China's medical imaging equipment are still in a seriously backward situation, and this situation has not changed until now. This is one of the development bottlenecks for China to become a major CT manufacturing country in the future. For this reason, the production of domestic CT tubes has been a long wait for medical imaging equipment practitioners. Zhuhai Ruineng is the first to go through the entire product life cycle process, including product research and development design, product registration, batch trial production, application evaluation, and product improvement. The product research and development, starting from DR Tubes, breast tubes, and small CT tubes, has been stagnant and accumulated over a long period of innovation. It has controlled the core technology of CT tubes and formed a complete set of technical methods for research and development and manufacturing. Currently, it holds 16 various patents. At the same time, it has also established a stable alliance of industry-university-research-medical and inspection collaboration with well-known domestic and foreign universities, medical institutions, inspection and testing institutions, and complete machine consumers and other professional institutions. The invention of CT tubes marked a historic breakthrough for "Made in China", breaking the foreign monopoly on CT tubes.