Image Credit: Qingming
Cardio-Pace Medical, Inc was incorporated in Delaware on April 20, 1981 to develop, manufacture, and market its proprietary Durapulse(TM) cardiac pacemaker and accessory products. Although Cardio-Pace achieved sales of its pacemakers, it did not achieve profitability. As a result, they suspended manufacturing the cardiac pacemaker in 1990. During 1985, Cardio-Pace entered into an agreement with Qinling Semiconductor to establish Qinming Medical, Inc., a Sino-American joint venture in Baoji, China, for the manufacture and distribution of cardiac pacemakers and accessory products. In 1992, Cardio-Pace sold its 49% interest in the joint venture to Qinming.
In 2010, Lepu Medical of Beijing purchased a 30.46 percent stake in Qinming as part of its efforts to forge an integrated Chinese cardiovascular products company. In 2013, Lepu completed the acquisition of Shaanxi Qinming Medical Instruments Co., Ltd.
Around that time, Qinming developed the QM7211, which was the first domestically developed dual-chamber rate-responsive pacemaker in China. Its clinical study to evaluate it for non-inferiority against a Biotronik Talos pacemaker was successfully completed in 2015.
Today, Qinming is Lepu’s subsidiary in charge of the development, manufacture, and marketing of pacemaker products. Their line includes single- and dual-chamber devices, as well as passive and active-fixation leads.