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Value creation capabilities based solely on R&D investment are not generating as much growth as they used to. According to PwC’s “Operating performance in the Medtech industry: Trends and imperatives” report, which studied the performance of 56 global medtech companies, the impact of R&D on revenue growth declined at an average annual rate of 10% and the return on invested capital declined at a rate of 2% between 2005 and 2011. The impact on growth is evident by revenue growth rates declining at a rate of approximately 12% per year.

A surprising few things have happened lately. Firstly, the weather in Belgium CAN be nice and pleasing to a Franco-Italian such as myself. Secondly, the ENVI Committee vote that was scheduled to take place on 10 July was postponed to 18 September for both the Medical Devices and In Vitro Diagnostics Directives. If I did not know better, one could think this date was chosen to coincide with our housewarming reception. All joking aside, my third surprise was the realisation that we’re already in mid-July, and it’s been a year since I’ve joined MedTech Europe, EDMA and Eucomed. Going into everything that has happened would take me too far this time, but I will reflect on the past year in my next blog, so look out for that to come out mid-August.

Judging by the weather in Belgium (currently 10° and raining) you wouldn’t say it, but it’s almost summer. Well, at least according to the calendar. And apart from the supposed good weather, summer also brings with it a host of new information on the MedTech Forum. Speakers are being confirmed, registrations coming in and preparations being made. Less than 5 months from now, we will all be seeing each other again at the event no one in our industry can afford to miss. So what does the MedTech Forum hold in store this year.

“First one down”… And I have to admit that I was pleased to read all your positive feedback and comments. This really gives me the enthusiasm to do even better in this second blog. If there is one thing I’ve learned from this whole process, it is that starting a new blogpost is like having to wake up in the morning: at first when the alarm is still buzzing you wish you didn’t have to, but once you get that first leg out of bed, you’re happy you did and everything else sort of follows from that first step.

When we speak about healthcare in Europe, the word ‘sustainability’ is used often. From the outset of the economic crisis in 2008, policymakers, ministries of health, customers and payers all have focused on sustainable financial systems and sustainable healthcare systems – often as separate paths to achieve results. As budgets are shrinking, innovative ways to maintain current social and healthcare systems for the long term must be employed. At CleanMed Europe, a conference that brings environmental and healthcare issues together on the same agenda, I was pleased to see that a broader alternative discussion is emerging—one that marries financial and systemic sustainability in healthcare.

For the past two years, I have been working with great passion on the subject of mobile health (or mHealth), having set up the global mHealth programme of the GSMA – the organisation that represents the interests of mobile operators worldwide. I am therefore very pleased that the momentum for mHealth has really been building.

Innovation delivers better quality at lower total cost in all walks of life. Many of the things that are freely available today and widely used were considered unaffordable luxuries for most in my youth. All this has happened because entrepreneurs and industrialists have constantly sought better ways of doing things and have changed the value equation.

My pulse is already racing at the prospect of this year’s MedTech Forum. The sequence of events following the 2008-2009 banking crisis has played out rather predictably with a broader economic crisis emerging in 2010 and only this year has the full force of public sector impacts been seen as the spending or money printing spree used to avoid deep recession has shifted to efforts to rebalance economies and pay back the debts that were created by ten years of fiscal laxity.

The latest results of the Euro Health Consumer Index (www.healthpowerhouse.com) further confirm the superiority of Bismarckian social philosophy over the Beveridge approach, at least as far as the patient is concerned. Bismarck countries, characterised by compulsory third party insurance systems, feature as the most consumer friendly health systems from the perspective of the patient and […]