Novo Holdings, the investment company that manages the wealth of the Novo Nordisk Foundation, has announced a strategic minority investment in Huizhou ForYou Medical Devices Co., Ltd., a China-based contract development and manufacturing organisation (CDMO) specialising in advanced wound care products. The deal, announced September 10 from Singapore, gives one of the world’s largest healthcare investors a direct stake in a fast-growing corner of global medical manufacturing, while leaving GL Capital, one of China’s leading healthcare-focused private equity firms, in place as ForYou Medical’s majority shareholder.
Who Is ForYou Medical?
Founded in 2005 and headquartered in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, ForYou Medical has built an integrated platform spanning polymer and biomaterial research, product development, regulatory affairs, and large-scale manufacturing. Its portfolio covers advanced wound dressings, haemostatic products, and bioabsorbable materials, supplying healthcare companies across major international markets rather than selling directly to hospitals or consumers under its own brand.
That CDMO model, developing and manufacturing products on behalf of other healthcare companies, has become an increasingly central part of how medical technology reaches the market. Rather than every healthcare brand building its own manufacturing capacity, specialist partners like ForYou Medical combine regulatory expertise, materials science, and production scale that would be costly for individual companies to replicate on their own.
Why Novo Holdings Is Betting on Wound Care Manufacturing
In a statement announcing the deal, Amit Kakar, Managing Partner and Head of Asia at Novo Holdings, said China continues to strengthen its position as a global centre for healthcare innovation and advanced manufacturing, and that Novo Holdings is committed to partnering with companies that combine strong technological capabilities with international competitiveness and long-term growth potential.
The investment reflects a broader thesis: advanced wound care is a structurally growing healthcare segment, driven by ageing populations, a rising prevalence of chronic wounds, and continued adoption of advanced treatment solutions over older, more basic wound care methods. Chronic wounds, conditions like diabetic foot ulcers, pressure ulcers, and venous leg ulcers, tend to require specialized, longer-term treatment, and they become more common as populations age, a demographic trend playing out across most of the world’s major economies simultaneously.
According to a market report from Acumen Research and Consulting, the global wound care centers market was valued at USD 38,671 million in 2021 and is projected to reach USD 65,652 million by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 6.2 percent, with North America holding more than 35 percent market share and the hospital segment accounting for roughly 60 percent of the total market. Asia-Pacific, notably, is projected to be the fastest-growing region in that period, expanding at a CAGR of around 7 percent, a trajectory that lines up closely with Novo Holdings’ rationale for backing a China-based manufacturing partner positioned to serve that growth from within the region.
The CDMO Model: Why Healthcare Companies Are Outsourcing Manufacturing
Novo Holdings’ investment thesis leans heavily on a trend playing out across medical technology more broadly: healthcare companies increasingly partnering with specialist manufacturers to accelerate innovation, broaden product portfolios, and improve operational efficiency, rather than building every manufacturing capability in-house. That shift has driven steadily growing demand for high-quality CDMO partners capable of combining manufacturing scale with the regulatory expertise needed to sell into multiple international markets simultaneously.
For a company like ForYou Medical, that demand translates into a straightforward value proposition: healthcare brands get access to advanced wound care manufacturing capacity and regulatory know-how without the capital expenditure or years of expertise-building required to develop it internally, while ForYou Medical captures revenue across a broad customer base rather than depending on a single product line or market.
What the Investment Signals About China’s Manufacturing Role
The deal also underscores a broader dynamic in global healthcare manufacturing. China’s position as a manufacturing hub has traditionally centered on cost efficiency and production scale; Novo Holdings’ investment frames ForYou Medical instead around technological capability and regulatory sophistication, qualities more commonly associated with manufacturing hubs in Europe or North America. That framing matters for how global healthcare investors are increasingly thinking about China: not simply as a low-cost production base, but as a genuine center of innovation capable of developing and manufacturing complex, regulated medical products for international markets.
Novo Holdings, in its statement, pointed specifically to its deep experience across the global healthcare ecosystem, long-term investment approach, and international network as advantages it can bring to ForYou Medical as the company continues expanding its innovation capabilities and serving customers globally. Together with GL Capital, the two investors said they intend to build on ForYou Medical’s existing foundation to create long-term value for its customers, employees, and partners.
What Comes Next
Financial terms of the minority investment were not disclosed. For now, the deal adds Novo Holdings, backed by the resources of one of the world’s largest healthcare-focused foundations, to ForYou Medical’s ownership structure alongside GL Capital, positioning the company for further international expansion in a wound care manufacturing market that, on the numbers cited above, is expected to nearly double in size over the coming decade. Whether that growth materialises as projected will depend on the same structural forces driving demand across the sector: ageing populations worldwide, rising chronic disease burden, and healthcare systems continuing to lean on specialist manufacturing partners rather than building every capability themselves.