The tightfisted, traditionally blue chip industry of medical technology was beset on all sides by daunting hurdles this past year. First, there were the mounting pressures of consumerization and globalization. More people in more places needed treatment, and it’s harder than ever to get it to everyone soundly and quickly. Next there was mHealth, the burgeoning movement that incorporates smart phones as conduits for health service, documentation and information (it was only a matter of time, anyway). But these are just the tip of the iceberg. A dark cloud of uncertainty looms, and more than ever, the name of the game is adapt or die.
In the United States, companies also wrestled with Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA), the new medical standard that seeks to minimize health care costs by emphasizing outcome-based care. The medical device manufacturing industry especially felt cornered as new taxes and rules sprang up. Death knells for device production plants around the country rang incessantly, even for the nation’s most prominent companies. Even more troublingly, the longitudinal impacts of the new taxes have yet to be seen. Their suffocating grasp on research and development budgets will only start to surface in the coming years.
