Michael Rossen provides a report that the medical device industry is growing faster than the pharmaceutical industry (summary at Medgadget). The pharmaceutical market is still substantially larger than global medical device industry, however. The medical device market is about 50% of the pharmaceutical market. The global medical device market is dominated by U.S. based companies. Also interesting, the top 25 medical device companies represent 60% of the total sales and 72% of the annual revenue. Of the top 25 medical device companies, 22 showed growth in 2007, with 15 achieving double digit percentage increases in revenue from 2006.
Some reasons provided for the growth of medical device market compared to pharmaceutical:
- shorter development times
- lesser regulatory (FDA) approval risks
- greater physcian needs for better diagnostic and imaging products
- the industry’s response and embrace regarding technology
- convergence of pharmaceuticals and medical devices
