The patient is increasingly the focus of the combined efforts of health care stakeholders, dictating more and more how the broad concept of value must be integrated into health care delivery. Digital technologies will expedite the process. Yet critics unfairly claim health care is too slow to transform. 2020 will be the year when the industry shake-out from the EU Medical Device Regulation will become fully visible; until now, it has mainly been silence and speculation. The MDR has united medtech executives on one thing: it must not slow down access to innovation for patients. But is it a failure in waiting? Innovation will remain the spine of the industry, but disruptive forces are telling manufacturers the old business model will not suffice.
“Digital is no longer a vertical, it cuts across all sectors. It is a horizontal.” Andy Fish of AdvaMed was explaining to the press in late fall 2019 that, in...