Sunrise Medical strives to bolster China's advanced rehabilitation sector

Sunrise Medical, a world-leading high-end customized assistive mobility solution provider from Germany, is committed to boosting the advancement of China's rehabilitation and medical industry.

A pioneer in the innovation, manufacturing and distribution of advanced assistive mobility devices and solutions, Sunrise Medical has 17 strong proprietary brands including Quickie, RGK, JAY, Leckey, Breezy, Gemino and more. Its key products include manual and power wheelchairs, scooters, power assist products, pediatric mobility and therapeutical devices, seating& positioning systems and daily living aids.

With more than 2,600 dedicated associates operating in 35 locations in 19 countries, Sunrise Medical offers one of the broadest and most innovative product portfolios in the industry especially in advanced Complex Rehabilitation Technology, or CRT.The company's global clinical education teams further support the industrial development in more than 130 countries.

Established in 1983, Sunrise Medical started as a collaboration among three of the industry's founding brands: Quickie, which revolutionized the manual wheelchair industry by introducing first personalized ultra-lightweight wheelchairs to the United States; Sopur, the German pioneer of wheelchairs and inventor for the first racing wheelchair; and the United Kingdom-based BEC Mobility, one of the earliest innovators for powered mobility that had created professor Stephen Hawking's earliest surviving powerchair. This year marks the 40-year anniversary for Sunrise Medical.

Core competitiveness

"Improving people's lives is not only our mission, but also a principle embedded in our DNA and a driving passion for all our associates," said Carol Liu, senior vice-president of the corporate development & strategic marketing at Sunrise Medical.

"Prolific innovations set us apart from competition, which always have our users at heart. We have an extensive product portfolio that covers nearly every mobility solution — for all stages of life, from pediatric, adults to aging population. Most of our products are individually configured complex rehab medical devices regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, the Medical Devices Regulation in Europe and the China Food and Drug Administration. They serve people for whom our products are not high-end luxury but medical necessities that their daily lives are heavily dependent on. Many of our colleagues especially product engineers are wheelchair users themselves. We also collaborate extensively with users and clinical institutions," Liu said.

CRT products are designed to meet people's unique physical and functional needs. In addition to aiding mobility, they also help to prevent pressure injuries, correct spinal and posture-related problems and avoid further complications.

"We go to great lengths to tailor our products to each individual user's specific needs with tremendous attention to details — from unique medical requirements, and individual living environment and preferences, to personal body measurements," she said.

Sunrise Medical's Quickie branded complex rehab manual wheelchair has over 150 options and its power wheelchair has more than 200 options. Especially, its JAY seating range has over 10,000 salable items and the patented Cyro technology is still the world's first and only active cooling seating technology addressed all four pressure injury risk factors — pressure, temperature, moisture and shear.

The company's global leading pediatric brand Leckey provides"24 hours postural care" product range which has helped millions of children improve their posture and movement and avoided painful hip replacement surgeries and happily participated in their lives.

"Besides our leading innovations and quality, we also have a global footprint with an unmatched scale, together with actively accomplishing M&A and strategic partnerships, which all well support our growth,"Liu said.

Thomas Babacan, CEO of Sunrise Medical, also said:"As long as better is possible, good is not good enough.Continuous improvement is key to us."

China market

China has by now nearly 85 million disabled people, 210 million senior citizens aged above 65, and 6 million children born with cerebral palsy.However, unlike those developed countries in North America and European Union where public healthcare and private insurances typically reimburse for 90 percent of CRT devices, Chinese users are still largely relying on self-funding which is certainly very challenging for them.

"We trust CRT development and funded implementation in China will bring more preventative benefits, improving the independence, social participation and quality of lives for those most vulnerable people, while also reducing potentially much higher reactive healthcare costs and burden.On the other hand, China's advanced digital technologies could further enable the connectivity of smart CRT devices with the broader healthcare ecosystems potentially providing breakthrough innovations and development for the global industry.

"We sincerely hope Sunrise Medical can work in close collaboration with the relevant Chinese government authorities, leveraging our international resources, connection and knowledge to accelerate the advancement of CRT in China," Liu said.