Medtech 2013: Device Companies Go Where The Growth Is

Article preview from IN VIVO - January 27, 2014

To stave off the sluggish growth in established markets, multinational medtechs not only are finding new business in countries with booming health care industries but they’re also forging new ways to serve customers. Device companies now are pushing into services, such as disease management, and angling to compete more aggressively on pricing.

Medtech 2013: Device Companies Go Where The Growth Is

Article preview from IN VIVO - January 27, 2014\

To stave off the sluggish growth in established markets, multinational medtechs are not only finding new business in countries with booming health care industries, but they’re also forging new ways to serve customers. Device companies are pushing into services such as disease management, and angling to compete more aggressively on pricing.

 

Medtronic Inc.’s reporting of disappointing results from its SYMPLICITY renal denervation trials cast a bit of a pall over discussions at the JP Morgan Health Care Conference in San Francisco earlier this month. But by the end of the week, Medtronic’s stock held steady, building off the company’s broader pursuit of health care. The resiliency of Medtronic and the entire medtech sector reflects the fact that 2013 was a good year. Medtech began to reap the benefits of new product introductions, acquisitions, and a better working relationship with the Food and Drug Administration, which has become more collaborative with industry, as discussed below, while providing clarity on some previously murky areas such as guidance around mobile health technologies. (See "FDA’s Mobile Health Guidance Removes Risk For Investors" — START-UP, October 2013.)

The strength of the sector comes from the growing acceptance that change is coming and, if it’s handled properly, it can be good for medtech. To be sure, device companies continued their forays into emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil, many through acquisitions of local companies, and looked to new product areas to offset the low growth rates of more mature core product categories.

But there was definitely a subtle shift in the industry over the past year, as device companies began to think differently about their offerings and the changing nature of their relationships with customers. The term “value-based medicine” rang through the halls of the Westin St. Francis during the conference as one medtech CEO after another joined the cost-effective chorus. Once focused on enhancing the medical devices themselves in ways that improve outcomes and satisfy physician-users of the devices, they’ve been forced to redefine their customers more broadly, taking into consideration not just the physician, but also the way devices fit into integrated systems of care, and the broader needs of those systems.

Continued...

To read this article in its entirety, Purchase now as a PDF and receive it immediately via email. Or get it FREE when you subscribe to IN VIVO.

Plus:

To find out about more about more about our medical device publications and databases, multi-user access and/or advertising with Medical Devices Today, please contact  Kristy Kennedy at (480) 985-9512