POSTED BY
Myles Clegg
Global Data recently published a prediction for 2023 that sets out the critical issues for medical devices over the next 12 months. Some are purely technical developments that offer new opportunities and advancements, some are legislative responses to some of the growing dangers inherent in innovation, others reflect trends in global or national positioning. This article takes a brief look at these ten key topics.
1 Environmental, Sustainability and Governance
Governments will crack down on greenwashing in 2023 after the first re-evaluation of the implementation of the Paris agreement. The European Green Deal (EGD), introduced in September 2022, will tackle misleading ESG claims made by corporations. Businesses that do not change misleading environmental claims will be fined.
Businesses will become accountable for their Scope 3 emissions – the indirect emissions in their value chain and a huge proportion of the carbon footprint. The US, EU, and New Zealand recently made disclosure mandatory.
Medical device companies will be pressured to act on environmental sustainability, despite their complex risk and quality management standards.
2 Artificial Intelligence
Global spending on artificial intelligence (AI) will reach $93 billion in 2023, up 12% from 2022. The urgent need for AI transparency will lead to a growing emphasis on Explainable AI (XAI) - the inability to see AI decision-making processes - as AI is increasingly involved in life-changing decisions.
New and updated AI regulations will emerge but remain toothless. A unified global vision in AI regulation would improve ML safety, privacy, transparency, and accuracy, but national approaches prevent it, however, Big Tech has the power to shape its deployment.
AI will become a key driver in medical device innovation. Although highly regulated and slow to adopt new technologies, medical device development will realize the benefits of AI. AI will continue to help in the fight against COVID-19.
3 China
China will double down in its pursuit of 70% self-sufficiency in chips by 2025. In the wake of President Xi Jinping’s historic third term and new export restrictions in the US, decoupling will be the new standard for global technology supply chains in 2023.
Talent cultivation and domestic innovation will be crucial for technological progress in China. Beijing will struggle to acquire foreign talent due – in some part – to its zero-COVID policies. President Xi will focus on enhancing domestic education in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce in 2023, but progress will take around a decade. Posted jobs in China’s semiconductor industry fell by 45% from January to October 2022.
China’s medical device sector will continue to grow – with cardiovascular devices, diagnostic imaging devices, in vitro diagnostic devices, and orthopedic devices from domestic medical device companies as part of their Made in China 2025 plan. They have a goal of raising domestic devices in high-tier hospitals to 70% by 2025.
The easing of zero-COVID will be too little too late and Beijing will have a bumpy exit from zero-COVID due to soaring case numbers, vaccine hesitancy, and poor healthcare infrastructure.
Despite approving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for ex-pats, most of the population are vulnerable and foreign companies will continue to decouple as a result.
4 Cybercrime
The rising rates of cybercrime and growing media coverage both put immense pressure on cybersecurity teams. It’s even more challenging to attract and retain cybersecurity professionals with cyber teams' mental and physical well-being threatened by their workload.
Organizations will prioritize zero-trust capabilities in 2023 – the assumption that any entity trying to gain access to an organization’s IT is untrustworthy until verified. The US government has mandated this for all its agencies, meaning stronger security measures such as phishing-resistant multi-factor authentication and network traffic encryption.
With the growing adoption of AI-based security technologies, AI will also increasingly become a malicious tool to create advanced cyber threats. Cybersecurity will be critical for growing remote patient monitoring. Older legacy devices are at a heightened risk.
5 Robotics
Although the healthcare industry is often risk-averse, COVID-19, ESG issues, aging populations and lack of healthcare professionals will drive the use of robotics to help resolve the challenge of staff and skill shortages. Historically cost-prohibitive, as robotics technology becomes cheaper, robotics will be deployed to cope with demand.
The use of care and companion robots, robotic-enabled telesurgery will be instrumental in tackling the growing demand from aging populations.
The market will be worth $7.6 billion by 2023, with surgical robots accounting for 96% of market share, and care robots smaller, but increasing by 54% year-on-year.
6 Remote patient monitoring
As patients become even more accepting of these practices, remote patient monitoring will continue to improve patient care, reduce hospital admissions, and facilitate early discharge. The market will reach $760 million by 2030.
Mobile health apps for use with smartphones or tablets, used in conjunction with wearable devices, will remotely manage different therapies, monitor symptoms, and improve adherence to therapies.
Digital therapeutics (DTx) will be the next form of remote treatment, with mobile apps that enhance the delivery of remote patient care and increase patient empowerment.
7 Wearable Tech
Wearable Tech will grow to $54.4 billion as the healthcare landscape changes drastically post-pandemic. Patient autonomy, aging populations and reduced funding will widen the opportunity to integrate wearable tech to meet treatment demands and improve patient outreach.
Healthcare will continue towards a patient-centric, consumer-led model, making patients and wider consumers the point of care. This will change patient care pathways, with new ways to collaborate with patients.
Wearables can drive improvements by optimizing innovation and improving the efficiency of R&D with more reliable data, lower costs, and improved effectiveness. According to the World Economic Forum (WEF), 10% of people will be wearing internet-connected clothes by 2025.
With disease-specific devices, industry will ensure greater inclusion of patients and consumers during the design and development processes, shifting their interest from device/consumable providers to disease/care management organizations.
8 Precision medicine
Precision medicine is gaining in popularity due to the shift in healthcare to a more patient-centric perspective, and as patients take more control over their own health.
Expect an increase in genetic testing, the use of precision medicine in autoimmune disorders, and the use of AI.
Precision medicine can also provide new treatment methods for people suffering from autoimmune and infectious diseases.
Precision and personalized medicine (PPM) - medical models that allow medical treatment plans to be tailored to individuals based on their genetics, lifestyle, and environment, and AI technology – will be essential in driving PPM development.
PPM’s potential to deliver on an unmet need for discovering biomarkers for diagnostics and treatment selection for many cancers will encourage continued interest in this field from the strongest players in the industry.
9 The cloud
The global cloud computing market will be worth $734 billion by the end of 2023.
Medical businesses will benefit from offloading responsibility to third-party providers, adding flexibility and reducing upfront IT costs. However, because it contributes 3.7% of greenhouse gasses, cloud computing will have to become more sustainable, through relocation, renewable energy and serverless clouds.
There will be an increase in the use of cloud computing for medical devices, with key benefits including the ability to rapidly deliver information across disparate, far-flung systems.
As the medical devices sector undergoes this rapid digital transformation, fuelled by changes in disease discovery and management and patient care delivery, medical device companies must adapt to these changes to remain profitable.
10 Regulation
Local authorities will need to provide clear and appropriate guidance to ensure they encourage innovation and ensure delivery of innovative, safe, and effective medical devices to patients.
New regulations will be needed to keep up with the digitalization of healthcare – especially as AI is incorporated in devices such as enhanced imaging systems, smart robots, wearable technology and more. Many medical markets have not yet addressed these complexities.
Post-market surveillance will need to improve to strengthen responsiveness to medical device-related fatalities and account for device recalls.
