Medical Device Industry

The medical device industry has transformed disease detection, cut down on the use of invasive treatment options, reduced recovery times, and enabled patients to resume active, productive lives more quickly. There are few areas and specialties in medicine that are not impacted by the work being done in this important sector.

Medical devices in the broadest sense have been around for centuries - arguably since the invention of the thermometer in 1603. But medical devices as we understand the phrase today might be traced more accurately to the discovery of x-rays in 1895. From that point on, the medical device industry never looked back. Products and equipment produced today include relatively inexpensive items like disposable syringes and home pregnancy test kits to multi-million dollar robotic surgery systems and M.R.I. diagnostic machines. Trend watchers and industry reports indicate that cardiovascular products in particular - pacemakers, angioplasty balloons, and stents - will experience notable growth in the foreseeable future as the aging population expands.

The medical device industry is currently generating over $150 billion in revenues, and though a handful of the companies that make up the sector are relatively sizeable (though nowhere near the size of the Big Pharma firms), the vast majority are really quite small***. In fact, according to the Advanced Medical Technology Association, an industry trade group, more than 80% of medical technology companies have fewer than 50 employees.

The companies that make up the medical device industry tend to “cluster around particular areas where other high tech industries are found. In the U.S., this means that, though you can find healthcare companies in many parts of the country, you'll find concentrations of these companies in California, Massachusetts, Florida, New Jersey, and Minnesota. Like the rest of the healthcare industry, the medical device industry is experiencing tremendous growth globally - and the same “clustering can be seen in those markets. For example, in Germany - the largest of the European medical device markets - the cluster is around the Baden-Wuerttemberg. Though the European market is second only to the U.S. market, tremendous expansion and growth of this sector can be seen in the Asia-Pacific markets - not only regarding manufacturing itself but in terms of outsourced R&D and as a very valuable source of suppliers.

In the next decade, innovations in medical technology and engineering will fundamentally change the health-care landscape, providing new solutions to address chronic diseases and conditions and revolutionize the way treatments are administered. The medical device industry will expand as it races to keep pace with consumer demand and as it continues to develop the equipment that will foster breakthroughs in the healthcare industry, so engineers of all kinds will find challenges and opportunities here that they could never hope for elsewhere.

*** Source: Medical Product Outsourcing 2006