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2 years, 4 months ago

Best IVF Centre in Delhi | Sunrise hospital

Sunrise Hospital
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Nowadays Infertility Problem is a serious concern in India. Infertility rate increasing day by day. Sunrise Hospital is the right path for Infertility. We offer the Best IVF Centre in Delhi with a 100% Fertility rate. We focus on patient comfort and proper consultation.

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2 years, 4 months ago

Best Gynecologist in Delhi NCR | Sunrise Hospital

Sunrise Hospital
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Obstetrics and Gynaecology
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female health
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gynecology
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Sunrise Hospital has the Best gynecologist in Delhi NCR. They perform gynecological surgeries with laparoscopic tools and equipment. The department provides a comprehensive range of treatments and therapeutic services to women of all ages. Specialized units for traumatic and non-traumatic gynecological procedures.

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2 years, 4 months ago

Best Gynecologist in South Delhi | Visit Now

Sunrise Hospital
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Are you looking gynecology Hospital? Sunrise Hospital is the best Gynecologist in South Delhi. Using state of art technologies, gynecology procedures such as painless deliveries, minimal access surgeries and many others are practiced at this institution.

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2 years, 5 months ago

Should MedTechs follow surgeons or patients?

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  • The traditional strategy of the medical devices industry has been to maximise the experience of the surgeon
  • This has resulted in paying little attention to the demands of patients
  • Surgeon populations are shrinking while the general population is growing, aging, becoming ill and demanding care
  • This creates care gaps, which are challenging to reconcile, prolong unnecessary suffering and cause unnecessary deaths
  • Reconciling the shrinking supply of health professionals with the increasing healthcare demands has given more weight to patient demands
  • MedTechs will be obliged to recalibrate their approach to patients principally because regulators are involving them in the approval process of medical devices
  • Patient centric digital therapeutic solutions help to reduce care gaps
  • However, developing such digital therapeutics and involving patients will not come easy to traditional MedTechs because of their lack of capabilities and organizational culture
  • Notwithstanding, to be relevant in the future, MedTechs will need to continue to improve their ties with surgeons while increasing their focus on the large and rapidly growing patient demands
 
Should MedTechs follow surgeons or patients?
 
 
Traditional MedTech business models are overwhelmingly focussed on manufacturing physical devices for surgeons to use in episodic, hospital-based, interventions. Over decades, a symbiotic relationship between surgeons and medical device manufactures has been established and led to significant commercial success for both parties. This has meant that MedTechs have not paid the attention they should have to the growing demands of patients, which include primary prevention and screening through diagnosis and staging to treatment, rehabilitation, and the subsequent management of a condition. Should medical device companies double-down on their business models to follow surgeons, or should they change approach and follow patients?
 
In this Commentary

This Commentary has 2 sections: (i) Follow surgeons, and (ii) Follow patients. Section1 suggests that medical device companies will need to continue their mutually beneficial relationships with physicians but tighten their governance ties. Further, leaders might consider some aspects of surgeon populations, which could impact their business model. These include: (i) the increasing shortages and aging of surgical populations, (ii) burnout among surgeons that prompts early retirement, and (iii) the prevalence of unnecessary surgeries. Section 2 considers the business model of MedTechs following patients and suggests that this is likely to become more relevant in the future as regulators are encouraging patient participation in the approval process for medical devices. Further, patient demands are supported by advancing technologies and smart platforms such as PatientsLikeMe. Patient centric solutions tend to be digital therapeutics, based on software rather than hardware. Solutions that address patient care pathways require scarce digital, data management and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities, which MedTechs tend not to have. To stand a chance of attracting these, MedTechs will need to develop non-hierarchical, agile working cultures with the capacity to innovate at speed. The significance of business models that improve patients’ care pathways is illustrated by two recent, transformative MedTech deals. Takeaways suggest MedTechs should continue following surgeons, albeit under enhanced governance principles and involve patients in the development of devices and increase their capabilities to provide patient centric digital solutions.
 
 
SECTION 1
Follow surgeons
 
The medical devices industry is “big business”. In 2021, the US devoted ~US$199bn (~5.2%) of annual national health expenditures to medical devices. Over the past four decades mutually beneficial relationships between surgeons and medical device companies have been built, and this forms the basis of a dominant industry business model to “follow surgeons”.
 
Surgeons play a crucial role in the conceptualization, development, and enhancement of medical devices; they influence hospital purchasing decisions, and are compensated for providing these services. Further, they are remunerated for representing MedTechs at conferences, giving speeches on behalf of corporations, and playing a critical role in training physicians to use devices because their efficacy is often associated with a specific use technique that needs to be taught. Further, surgeons may receive research grants from MedTechs and be promoted because of their association with a successful innovation. More recently, with the rise of medical device start-ups, the financial incentives to surgeons have included equity stakes in lieu of cash for various contributions. This means that significant financial ties between medical device companies and surgeons are relatively common, which can be the basis for potential conflicts of interest.
 
MedTechs code of conduct

AdvaMed, a US medical device trade association, based in Washington, DC, is aware of such conflicts and suggests that physicians should be compensated at fair market rates for work they perform. The Association is against equity compensation and says that there should be no link between the commercial success of a medical device and a physician. AdvaMed encourages voluntary, ethical interactions and advises member organizations and physicians to disclose all potential conflicts of interest, which include consulting arrangements, training, support of third-party educational conferences, participation in sales and promotional meetings, gifts, grants, and charitable donations.
 
Despite AdvaMed’s best efforts its suggested code of conduct does not appear to work. A bibliometric analysis of 100 clinicians receiving compensation from 10 large MedTechs and published in the November 2018 edition of JAMA Surgery found that conflicts of interest were not declared in 63% of 225 research projects that resulted in publications. Given the increasing significance of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) criteria among socially conscious investors to screen potential investments, it seems reasonable to suggest that MedTechs might consider regularly disclosing all their financial ties with surgeons and health professionals.
More issues to consider

In addition to the increasing significance of ESG issues, there are some further questions associated with MedTech business models that follow surgeons, which corporate leaders might wish to reflect upon. These include: (i) the surgeon population is aging and shrinking, (ii) surgeons have a higher propensity to burnout than other medical specialities, and (iii) surgeons are responsible for a substantial number of unnecessary operations. Let us describe these in a little more detail.
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A prescription for an AI inspired MedTech industry
Shrinking surgeon populations

Throughout the world, populations of surgeons and health professionals are shrinking. Findings of a 2016 US Department of Health and Human Services report suggest that by 2025, there will be shortages in 9 out of 10 surgical specialties in America, with the greatest reduction in ophthalmology, orthopaedics, urology, and general surgery. Research prepared for the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) by the healthcare consulting firm IHS Markit and published in June 2020, suggests that, by 2032, the US could lack ~23,000 surgeons. Although the US has a higher number of total hospital employees than most countries, nearly half of that workforce is comprised of non-clinical staff who are not directly involved in delivering care. For instance, compared to Italy and Spain, America has fewer practicing physicians per capita: 2.6 per 1,000 inhabitants, compared to 4 in Italy and 3.9 in Spain. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the global shortage of health workers is projected to reach 13m by 2033.
 
Care gaps

One reason for this projected shrinkage is that a large percentage of surgeons are nearing traditional retirement age. For instance, more than 2 in 5 currently active American doctors will be ≥65 years within the next decade. Further, people are living longer, and a substantial percentage are not staying healthy and need care. According to the US Census Bureau the number of Americans ≥65 is expected to reach ~84m by 2050, which is ~2X the 2012 level of 43m. Among this older population there is a large and growing prevalence of chronic lifetime diseases such as cancer, diabetes, heart conditions, respiratory diseases, and mental illness. In the US there are ~150m people with such conditions and ~40% of these are living with ≥2 chronic diseases. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ~90% of the US$4.1trn annual medical spend (~20% of the country's GDP) is attributable to chronic disorders. Such trends magnify the vast and growing pressure on a shrinking pool of health professionals, and this creates challenging care gaps.
 
Digital therapeutics

Care gaps will not be reduced by medical schools training more physicians and nurses. This takes too long to have an impact on the size of the problem. The UK has attempted to reduce care gaps by importing physicians: ~190,000 of the 1.35m NHS staff in England report a non-British nationality, and ~27% of NHS staff in London report a nationality other than British. This policy raises some ethical issues as most are imported from developing economies with underdeveloped healthcare systems and a scarcity of health professionals. The option to import physicians is not open to the US because its immigration policies make it difficult for international health professionals to work in America. Recently, many advanced industrial economies have sought to reduce their care gaps by developing digital therapeutic solutions for patients, which extend the reach of physicians by overcoming time, place and personal constraints that limit care delivery.
 
Surgeon burnout

Findings of a research study published in the June 2018 edition of the Journal of the American College of Surgeons suggest that the prevalence of burnout among surgeons has increased over time. The research references the 2015 Medscape Physician Lifestyle Report, which argues that burnout among surgeons is on the rise and documents burnout rates among various specialisms ranging ~37% to ~53%, with general surgeons nearing the top of the list at 50%. Research on the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on healthcare professionals published in the December 2021 edition of the Mayo Clinic Proceedings, found that ~1 in 3 US physicians expressed a clear intention to reduce their work hours, and ~1 in 4 intended to leave their practice altogether. Such trends are concerning considering the aging of the US population and the subsequent increased pressure this puts on healthcare systems.
 
Many factors contribute to surgeon burnout. Common causes among American surgeons include long work hours, delayed gratification, challenges with work-home balance, and issues associated with patient care in a changing healthcare ecosystem. According to the WHO’s International Classification of Diseases, (ICD-11) burnout results from “chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed”. It is characterised by being emotionally exhausted, feelings of cynicism and loss of empathy and a sense of low personal accomplishment with respect to one’s work. A meta-analysis of the prevalence of burnout published in the March 2019 edition of the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health  suggests that surgeons experience elevated rates of depression and psychiatric distress and posits that burnout among junior surgeons is at an epidemic level, which affects patient safety, quality of care and patient satisfaction.
 
Unnecessary surgeries

Another issue for medical device leaders to consider is the incidence rates of unnecessary surgeries. These are any intervention, which is not needed, not indicated, or not in the patient’s best interest when weighed against other available options.  Unnecessary surgeries are not a recent phenomenon: they are a significant reality that continue to expose patients to unjustified surgical risks. In 1976, the American Medical Association (AMA) called for a congressional hearing to address the issue, claiming that each year there are “2.4m unnecessary operations performed on Americans at a cost of US$3.9bn and that 11,900 patients had died from unneeded operations”.  Across the US, the phenomenon is patchy. A cross-sectional study of five US metropolitan areas and published in the January 2022 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association found significant differences in physician treatment recommendations across a range of specialisms.

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If spine surgery fails to relieve low back pain why is it increasing?
Most common unnecessary surgeries

The incidence rates of unnecessary surgeries appear more prevalent in spinal, gynaecological and some orthopaedic procedures. Clinical trials have shown that a significant percentage of spinal fusions for back pain do not lead to improved long-term patient outcomes when compared to non-operative treatment modalities, including physical therapy and core strengthening exercises. Despite these findings, spinal fusion rates continue to increase significantly in the US.
Further, women are at high risk of unnecessary hysterectomies and caesarean sections. Although these rates are moderating, a study for the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, suggested that hysterectomies were improperly recommended in ~70% of cases, even though there were non-surgical alternatives. Hysterectomies can lead to bladder and bowel dysfunction, prolapse, and incontinence,  as well as a 4-fold increased risk of pelvic organ fistula surgery. A study in Health Affairs found that caesarean rates varied significantly (from 2.4% to 36.5%) in hospitals across the US, even among those with low-risk pregnancies.
 
Another study published in Health Affairs suggests that after patients received information on alternatives to joint replacement surgeries, ~26% had fewer hip replacements and ~38% had fewer knee replacements. Each year in the US, >1m total hip and total knee replacement procedures are performed.
 
 
SECTION 2
Follow patients
 
It is not uncommon for MedTech leaders to say that they put “patients first” when developing devices. However, although things are changing, which we describe below, this is more rhetorical that factual. MedTech R&D teams tend to be relatively remote, inwardly focussed, and, particularly in the US, patient voices are generally ignored and not perceived as an integral part of the process.
 
However, the healthcare ecosystem is changing and “following surgeons” cannot constitute an entire strategy for MedTechs. In the future, MedTech business models that follow patients will be driven by patients’ knowledge and their increasing demands to participate in their healthcare decisions, the movement towards personalized care, and regulators’ mandates to incorporate patient perspectives into the development of medical devices and approval processes (see below). Earlier, we suggested that, when surgeons engage with medical device corporations there are competing interests, which often are not disclosed. By contrast, patients are primarily driven by their own safety and wellbeing, which, contrary to surgeons, are grounds for promoting mutual accountability and understanding with healthcare providers.
 
To remain relevant, MedTechs will need to incorporate patient perspectives and patient data into their business models, not least because patients are co-producers of their health and represent a consistent factor, probably the only consistent factor, throughout the care pathway. Further, patients, empowered by digital therapeutics and health information from wearables, hold invaluable personal data, which are often critical to improving care pathways, and outcomes.
 
PatientsLikeMe
 
Patient voices were loud and influential long before MedTechs recognised the significance of engaging patients in development processes. Consider PatientsLikeMe, a digital platform founded in 2004, with a mission to improve the lives of patients by sharing knowledge, experiences, and outcomes. The company quickly grew to become the world’s largest integrated community, health management, and real-world data platform. Via the site, users can document and share their experiences, track their conditions, and communicate with others living with similar disease states. Data generated by patients who use the site are systemically collected and quantified by the company, while providing users with an environment for peer support and learning. Today, PatientsLikeMe has >0.8bn users representing >2,900 conditions. The company makes money by selling the information patients share in de-identified, aggregated, and individual formats. In 2019, the platform was acquired by the UnitedHealth Group, an American multinational healthcare and insurance company, after former President Trump’s administration forced it to seek a buyer because its majority owner was China-based iCarbonX.
 
Increasing patient input in approval processes for medical devices

What will make MedTechs wake up to the significance of patient perspectives in the development of medical devices are initiatives and demands made by regulators. For the past decade, European regulators through the European Medicine’s Agency (EMA). have solicited patient inputs into their approval process for medical devices. In 2014, the FDA and the EMA created a joint working group to share knowledge and information on patient engagements. In 2007, the Clinical Trials Transformation Initiative (CTTI), a public-private partnership was co-founded by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Duke University and modelled on the EMA Patients’ and Consumers’ Working Party. CTTI’s mission is to develop and drive patient involvement in the development and approval of devices, which is expected to increase the quality and efficiency of clinical trials. Since its foundation, the CTTI has become a leader in evolving and advancing clinical trials, making them more efficient, and patient focused.
 
In December 2017, a nationwide request in the US was made for patients and patient advocate groups to join the CTTI and become more involved in healthcare product development and in the FDA product reviews. This call came ~1 year after the 21st Century Cures Act became law in December 2016. The Act’s intention is to expedite the process by which new medical devices and drugs are approved by easing the requirements put on companies seeking FDA approval for new products and indications. Under Section 3001 of the Act, the FDA is required to report any patient experience data that were used to support an approval process and to publicly provide aggregate reports on agency use of those data at five-year intervals. This suggests that MedTechs wanting new FDA approvals will need to provide patient-driven data.
 
These initiatives are driven by an ever-improving consumer-controlled social and health data ecosystem, advancements in personal genetic understanding, and increased healthcare cost-sharing. Patient-driven changes are systematically beginning to inject more than token patient participation and viewpoints into all stages of device and drug development.
 
A cultural shift

Improving patient engagement in the development process of medical devices will be challenging for MedTechs that have focussed their business models mainly on manufacturing physical devices and building relationships with surgeons, rather than developing digital assets for patients. The latter requires scarce data management and AI capabilities, which do not thrive in conservative hierarchical organizations. Rather, they require a culture, which promotes innovation at speed and agile ways of working. A recent survey of European executives by The Economist Intelligence Unit, found that poor collaboration between a company’s IT function and its business units slows progress in a firms’ digital objectives. MedTechs that are slow to develop digital capabilities that address patient needs and integrate these into their business models risk not being a party to decisions shaping the emerging healthcare ecosystem.
 
The increasing significance of scarce AI talent

Digital therapeutics predicated upon AI techniques, which are growing in significance with healthcare systems, require large amounts of data collected from electronic health records (EHR), medical images, and information from patients’ wearables. Key areas where AI techniques can improve the delivery of care include: (i) diagnoses, (ii) managing patient journeys, and (iii) improving patient engagement. Streamlining these three areas can ease administrative burdens on healthcare systems, optimize physicians’ time, improve patient outcomes, and lower costs. However, a significant challenge for MedTechs is the scarcity of essential capabilities to develop digital strategies. A 2020 research report by Deloitte Insights suggested that there are significant shortages of “AI developers and engineers, AI researchers, and data scientists”. Corporate leaders might consider bolstering their chances of attracting digital and AI talent by: (i) leveraging their company’s unique value and purpose, (ii) prioritizing and offering best-in-class training over recruiting, (ii) prioritizing diversity, and (iv) engaging with universities.
 
Transformative MedTech deals
 
The significant shift in MedTech strategies towards patients is demonstrated by two recent transformative deals: Teledoc’s 2020 acquisition of Livongo and Siemens Healthineers AG’s 2021 acquisition of Varian Medical Systems Inc. Both combinations emphasise the significance of digitalization and demonstrate the strategic shift towards patients. 
 
The US telehealth giant Teledoc’s acquisition of Livongo for US$18.5bn was the largest digital healthcare deal in history, which valued the combined company at US$38bn. Livongo, founded in 2014, provides digital therapeutic solutions to improve patient health outcomes for a range of chronic conditions including diabetes, and hypertension. The other transformative MedTech digitalization deal was the German health imaging giant Siemens Healthineers AG’s acquisition of cancer device and software specialist Varian in April 2021 for US$16.4bn. Siemens Healthineers is the leading supplier of medical imaging solutions used to support the planning and delivery of radiotherapy. Varian was the leading supplier of radiotherapy solutions. Both deals were substantially larger than Amazon’s US$0.75bn 2019 acquisition of PillPack, and Google’s US$2.1bn 2021 acquisition of Fitbit, and they signal a new and permanent path for MedTech companies towards a digital-first future.
 
Takeaways

To remain relevant MedTechs will need to continue their symbiotic relationships with surgeons albeit in a modified form, while becoming significantly more patient centric and digitally savvy. However, a bigger challenge Western MedTechs will have to face in the next five years is whether they can develop digital therapeutic solutions for patients fast enough to compete with the looming threat from China’s large and rapidly growing capacity to develop and market medical robotics for surgeons and innovative digital therapeutics for patients. This will be the subject of a forthcoming Commentary.
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2 years, 7 months ago

Leaning-in on digital and AI

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Artificial Intelligence
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  • Digital therapeutics and artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are increasing their influence on the medical devices industry and fuelling a shift of healthcare away from hospitals into peoples’ homes
  • This poses a challenge to traditional medical device companies (MedTechs) that solely focus on manufacturing physical devices for hospital-based episodic interventions
  • Some MedTechs are changing their business models and strategies, diverting their focus to patients, and adding digital therapeutic applications to their legacy offerings
  • Zimmer-Biomet and Stryker are MedTechs that have embraced digital therapeutics and AI
  • Stryker’s CEO advises other MedTechs to ‘lean-in on AI and don’t be sceptical’
 
Leaning-in on digital and AI
 
Rapidly growing digital therapeutic technologies are disrupting hospital-based healthcare and posing a challenge to those medical device companies that are slow to complement their legacy physical product offerings with patient centric digital solutions. Such technologies have the potential to enhance patient outcomes, reduce healthcare costs, and give providers access to new revenue streams. Today, digital solutions increasingly contribute to the prevention, management, and treatment of a wide range of diseases and health conditions. Their rapid growth is driven by advances in the behavioural sciences, artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and the increase in the consumer health wearables market, which is converging with the regulated medical devices market. This convergence facilitates care to move away from hospitals and into peoples’ homes.
 
In this Commentary
 
This Commentary describes how two decades ago a world-renowned surgeon and CEO of a large hospital group warned that digital therapeutics would disrupt healthcare and push a lot of hospital-based care to peoples’ homes. For years the medical devices industry did not pay too much attention to such warnings and continued to focus on manufacturing physical products for surgeons in hospitals. The Commentary describes two leading MedTechs - Zimmer-Biomet and Stryker – which have recently begun to reinvent themselves and embrace digital therapeutics and AI techniques expected to improve patient outcomes and reduce surgical inconsistencies. We briefly develop this thought process by suggesting how machine learning AI techniques might be employed to reduce the high failure rates of spinal surgeries. The Commentary describes the large and growing global market for digital therapeutics and prescription digital therapeutics, a large proportion of which are enabled by wearables and telehealth. The market for digital therapeutics is large enough and growing fast enough to pose a threat to traditional medical device companies that solely manufacture physical offerings and fail to develop digital solutions to improve patient journeys. Although some MedTechs neither have the resources nor the mindsets to develop digital solutions, it seems reasonable to suggest that, in the medium term, they will be obliged to acquire or develop such assets to remain competitive. However, achieving this will be challenging.
  
Early warnings of change

Over a decade ago, Devi Shetty, warned health professionals to prepare for care to become heavily influenced by digital therapeutics, which he argued would move a significant portion of care away from hospitals and into peoples’ homes. This warning had resonance because Shetty is a surgeon as well as being the founder and executive director of Narayana Health, one of India’s largest hospital groups. In an interview with HealthPad in 2012 he suggested that hospitals were becoming less relevant in a new, and rapidly growing digitally driven healthcare ecosystem. “Healthcare of the future will be dramatically different to that of the past. The future is not an extension of the past. In the future, chronic illnesses will be treated at home”, said Shetty and continued, “The next big thing in healthcare is not going to be a magic pill, a faster scanner, or a new operation. It’s going to be digital therapeutics, which will dramatically change the way health professionals interact with patients. Every step of a patient’s care journey will be informed by software. This will make healthcare safer for the patient and shift most of hospital activities to the home. If a physician doesn’t have to operate on a patient, the patient can be anywhere, distance doesn’t matter”. Shetty repeated this argument at a 2022 Microsoft ‘Future Ready’ conference suggesting that, “95% of people who are unwell, don’t need an operation. All they need is medical intervention, which can be enabled by digital technology and telehealth and treated in the home”.
 
Leading MedTech companies reinventing themselves
 
Two decades after Shetty’s warning, the CEOs of Zimmer-Biomet and Stryker, respectively Bryan Hanson, and Kevin Lobo, have made substantial commitments to digital therapeutic solutions that improve patient outcomes, reduce surgical inconsistencies and extend treatment and monitoring to the entirety of patients’ journeys, much of which takes place in patients' homes. Medical device companies that fail to develop software solutions or link-up with providers of such technologies could risk losing market share to emerging competitors.
 
Zimmer-Biomet and digital therapeutics

Zimmer is a player in total knee arthroplasties, which involve replacing the knee joint with a prosthetic device that carries out similar functions as a person’s own knee. The surgery has become routine. In 2020, US physicians carried out ~1m total knee arthroplasties, and by 2030, ~2m such procedures are expected to be carried out annually in the US. In 2020, the global total knee replacement market was valued at ~US$7.8bn, expected to grow at a CAGR of >6%, and reach ~US$12.5bn by 2027.

In 2021, Zimmer and Canary Medical, a software company, which had developed an implantable digital therapeutic application, received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market Persona IQ: the world’s first ‘intelligent’ total knee replacement. Zimmer’s traditional knee prosthesis is embedded with Canary’s technology to provide a range of automatic, reliable, and accurate data and analyses that facilitates remote monitoring and tracking of patients' post-operative progress long after they have left hospital.  Following this success, Hanson is directing a substantial percentage of Zimmer’s R&D spend on the development of digital therapeutic solutions, and Persona IQ is expected to be the first in a pipeline of intelligent joint prostheses.
 
Stryker and digital therapeutics

In a March 2022 interview, Stryker’s CEO, Kevin Lobo, stressed his ongoing commitment to increase his company’s digital therapeutic and AI capabilities. In 2021 Stryker acquired Gauss Surgical, which had developed Triton™, an AI-enabled app for real-time monitoring of blood loss during surgery. “After a mother gives birth”, says Lobo “it’s important to calculate how much blood she’s lost. Today, this quantification is very crude and rudimentary. Triton™ allows you to use your smartphone to accurately measure the amount of blood that is in sponges as well as cannisters. It can distinguish between different liquids and measure only the haemoglobin. This is critical to determining whether a mother needs a transfusion or not. You would be shocked, even here in the US, how often a mother doesn’t get a transfusion she needs or gets one she doesn’t need”.

In January 2022, Stryker acquired Vocera Communications for ~US$3bn. Vocera is a US Nasdaq traded company founded in 2000 that makes wireless communications systems for healthcare and has developed a digital platform, which helps connect caregivers and "disparate data-generating medical devices". The platform is used by >2,300 facilities throughout the world, including ~1,900 hospitals. Interoperability between the platform and >150 clinical and operational systems reduce health risks and enhance the consistency of surgical procedures, speeds up staff response times; and improves patient outcomes, safety, and affordability. According to Lobo, "Vocera will help Stryker significantly accelerate our digital therapeutic aspirations to improve the lives of caregivers and patients".

Lobo has made AI a shared service. Stryker employs ~200 software engineers that are using AI. “This we never had before at Stryker. AI is going to be a central core competence for our company. I can see that all our business units are going to be using AI within the next two to three years”, says Lobo, who expects AI inspired digital therapeutic applications to “lead to more consistent outcomes for our procedures”. According to Lobo this is “a big deal because today there are a lot of variations in surgical outcomes”.

AI and its potential impact on spinal surgery

Spinal surgery is a good example of significant inconsistencies in outcomes. Each year, ~7.6m spinal surgeries are performed globally, and ~1.2m in the US, where spinal fusions account for ~60% of all procedures. Although ~50% of primary spinal surgeries are successful,  ~30%, ~15%, and ~5% of patients only experience a successful outcome after the second, third, and fourth surgeries, respectively. Machine learning AI techniques applied to patients’ electronic medical records (EMR) and clinical data could potentially reduce this high failure rate by predicting what product and surgical procedure could produce an optimal solution for individual patients.
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If spine surgery fails to relieve low back pain why is it increasing?


Robotic surgical spine systems, China, and machine learning
Let us briefly explain. Machine learning, a subfield of AI, is the capability of a machine to imitate intelligent human behaviour. It is the process of using mathematical models of data to help a computer to learn and adapt without following explicit human instructions. Machine learning employs algorithms (a set of instructions for solving a problem) to identify patterns in large data sets, potentially comprised of multiple sources, and then uses these patterns to create a predictive model. With increased training on more data, the results of a machine learning algorithm may become more accurate, much like how humans improve with practice. Once this point is reached, regulatory approval for the algorithm can be applied for under the FDA’s category of “software as a medical device”. Once approved, the algorithm may be used to help reduce the high failure rates of spinal surgery.
 
The digitalization of healthcare
 
MedTech leaders should be mindful of the impact that digital therapeutics is having on their industry, which goes far beyond embedding legacy physical offerings with sensors. Digital therapeutics is a rapidly growing healthcare modality, predicated upon scientific advances in the behavioural sciences and AI techniques, that help individuals to form habits, which improve their health, reduce healthcare costs and boosts productivity. Such software tools increasingly are used for the management and prevention of a range of debilitating and costly chronic conditions, including mental health challenges, substance abuse disorders, opioid-induced conditions, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders, respiratory conditions, and inflammatory diseases. Chronic disease is a public health emergency. In the US, six in ten citizens are living with at least one chronic disorder. Not only are such conditions the leading cause of hospitalizations, disability, and death, but their total annual cost to the US exchequer, which includes lost economic productivity, is ~US$3.7trn.
 
The market for digital therapeutics is driven by a combination of different factors, including: technological advances, particularly consumer wearables (such as the Apple Watch and Fitbit apps, see below), the high penetration levels of mobile telephony, the growth of telehealth, the increasing demand from consumers to take more control of their health, aging populations, the large and escalating incidence of preventable chronic diseases, the need to control healthcare costs, and rising investments in digital therapeutics. According to Statista, a business data platform, in 2021 the number of people globally using digital therapeutic applications reached ~44m. Almost double the number of 2020. By 2025 the number of users is expected to reach >362m, and this only includes devices that have sought validation in clinical trials. The global digital therapeutics market is growing at a CAGR of ~31% and is projected to reach ~US$13bn by 2026, up from ~US$3.4bn in 2021.
 
An advantage of digital health modalities is their ability to deliver continuous personalized care and bridge large care gaps created by shortages of specialized health professionals. In the US, for instance, there are ~6,500 specialist physicians in full-time clinical practice to treat diabetes (endocrinologists), but there are ~27m Americans living with the condition. Similar health gaps occur in other common disease states. In developing economies, care gaps are even wider. For example, India has a chronic shortage of doctors and nurses and has ~77m people living with diabetes and ~55m people living with cardiovascular disease. The latter kills ~5m Indian citizens each year. India, like many other Asian countries, has chosen to deal with care gaps by establishing itself as a major presence in the digital health economy. By several key metrices, from internet connections to app downloads, both the volume and the growth of India’s digital economy now exceeds those of most other countries. Expect this shift to increasingly influence corporations looking to enter and extend their franchises in large and rapidly growing medical devices markets in developing economies. 
 
Cybersecurity challenges

Headwinds for digital therapeutic applications, particularly in Western democracies, include challenges of informed consent to use, safety and transparency, algorithmic fairness and biases, and data privacy. Digital therapeutic applications tend to be more vulnerable to cyberattacks than traditional medical devices, which are manufactured according to strict protocols by a handful of regulated manufacturing partners. By contrast, digital applications often rely on third-party software, which may be less rigorous than the usual medical device standards. Cybersecurity threats to digital therapeutics include data theft, identity disclosure, illegally accessing data, corruption of data, loss of data, and violation of data protection. These risks are accentuated by the fact that the modality is predicated upon the continuous monitoring of patients’ vital signs and increased connectivity between physicians, providers, payers, and patients and breaches can occur at various points along the path of data movement. Risk mitigation includes encryption protocols and the ability to control data access and data integrity. An indication of how quickly the US policy environment around cybersecurity is changing is in March 2022, the US Senate unanimously passed legislation, which would usher in sweeping changes to the federal legal landscape relating to cybersecurity and mandate companies to report damaging hacks and ransomware payments to the government.
 
Prescription digital therapeutics

Another indication of the growing significance of digital therapeutics is a recent US policy push to establish an equivalence between some wearable healthcare solutions and prescription drugs and medical devices. On 10 March 2022, two US senators, Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nevada, and Todd Young, R-Indiana, introduced legislation to expand Medicare and Medicaid coverage to include prescription digital therapeutics. Medicare is a federally run US medical insurance programme covering ~64m citizens >65 and younger disabled people. Medicaid is a government assistance programme, funded by both federal and state governments, but run by individual states and covers the medical expenses of ~75m Americans on low incomes and with limited resources. This is significant because of the vast number of individuals covered by these health insurances and the fact that the US regulatory hurdle is one of the toughest in the world. Prescription digital therapeutics fall under the FDA category of “software as a medical device” and are subject to the same stringent requirements as drugs and medical devices, and must demonstrate evidence of clinical effectiveness, safety, and quality. After that they require a prescription for use, following a consultation with a doctor.
 
The bill would standardize US reimbursement codings for prescription digital therapeutics, which is expected to incentivize American doctors to increase prescribing them. This would not only facilitate greater access to a wide range of digital therapies for >44% of Americans receiving state healthcare support but potentially create a precedent for US private health insurance companies to increase their coverage of prescription digital therapeutics. This would significantly help to propel the modality into mainstream healthcare.



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The future of health wearables

In June 2020, as the COVID-19 crisis escalated, the FDA expanded its guidance for non-invasive patient-monitoring technologies, including the Apple Watch’s ECG function. In 2021, ~34m Apple Watches were sold worldwide; up from ~22.5m in 2018. In addition to smartwatches, there is a wide range of intelligent wearables that monitor your vital signs in real time, promote self-management of chronic conditions, help people to engage with their own health and incentivize them to change their behaviour to improve their health and lifestyles. Thus, digital therapeutic applications have the potential, among other things, to slow the development of chronic disorders and reduce hospital visits and readmissions. The size and growth rate of the wearable health technology market influences the decisions of insurers, employers, health providers and producers. For example, insurers use data from wearables to adjust their premiums,  corporates derive benefits from their employees using wearables, which include healthier company cultures, a reduction in employee turnover, an increase in workplace safety and enhanced efficiency.  
In the US, consumers' use of wearables increased from 9% to 33% in four years as of 2021. The use of wearables is likely to increase as they become more conventional, connectivity expands, and more accurate sensors are developed. Such developments are likely to provide further incentives for insurers and employers to use wearables to develop healthier lifestyles to boost profitability and cut costs. According to Gartner, a technological research and consulting firm, in 2021 worldwide user spending on wearable devices was ~ US$82bn, ~18% increase from the previous year. This seems reflective of consumers, encouraged by the COVID-19 pandemic, becoming more conscious about their health, wellbeing, and changes to their lifestyles. According to a 2021 Deloitte’s survey, ~58% of US households own a smartwatch or fitness tracker, and ~39% of Americans personally own a smartwatch or fitness tracker. ~14% of consumers have bought their fitness devices since the start of the COVID pandemic in 2020, and activities such as counting steps, workout performance, heart health, and sleep quality monitoring are amongst the most popular activities.
 
Telehealth

Another factor driving the shift of care away from hospitals to peoples’ homes is the development of telehealth. The COVID-19 pandemic caused telehealth usage to surge as consumers and providers sought ways to safely access and deliver healthcare. According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), by late March 2020, telehealth had increased >154% compared to the same period in 2019.  Since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, telehealth has become a permanent part in the delivery of healthcare. The telehealth market is expected to rise to >US$397bn by 2027 from US$42bn in 2019. According to Devi Shetty the history of healthcare will be written in two sections, BC, and AC: before COVID and after COVID. “COVID-19 disrupted and transformed healthcare and forced inward looking healthcare professionals to rapidly change and adopt digital therapeutic technologies”, says Shetty.
 
The legacy of the COVID-19 related surge in digital therapeutics is an opportunity to make permanent hybrid care modalities created during the pandemic. The foundations for the opportunity are described in a 2021 McKinsey research report, which suggests that the pandemic, (i) accelerated the growth and acceptance of telehealth, which “stabilized at ~38X higher than before the crisis”, (ii) improved the attitudes of consumers and providers towards telehealth, (iii) made permanent some regulatory changes put in place during the pandemic (for example, Medicare and Medicaid’s expansion of reimbursable telehealth codes introduced in 2021 for US physician fee schedules, which have been made permanent), (iv) fuelled venture capital’s digital health investments, and (v) drove the adoption of digital therapeutics across a wide range of disease states. 
Shift in mindset

In the changing healthcare ecosystem, a primary strategic objective for MedTech leaders is to define relevant planning cycles and efficaciously manage from one cycle to the next. The current planning cycle in the medical devices industry is influenced by data, AI techniques, and patient centric digital therapeutic solutions. To effectively manage this cycle, MedTechs might consider copying Zimmer and Stryker and acquire complementary digital therapeutic assets and capabilities. Adapting M&A knowhow and experience to make such acquisitions is an option but not without risk.
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MedTech must digitize to remain relevant
This is because enterprises with digital assets and capabilities have different cultures, development practices, reimbursement policies and data management policies and practices compared to traditional medical device companies. It seems reasonable to suggest that poorly managed acquisitions could result in MedTechs ending up with a graveyard of unfulfilled digital technologies. To reduce this risk industry leaders might consider following Stryker’s example and recruit experienced digital and AI specialists, and make them a core competence.
 
Takeaways

In the near-term, disruptive digital technologies present both challenges and opportunities for medical device companies. Zimmer and Stryker have started to reinvent themselves through parallel efforts to digitize their legacy businesses, acquire complementary digital assets, and make AI a core competence. However, many MedTechs have not changed their business models and still focus R&D on making small improvements to existing product offerings. Corporate leaders considering changing their business models and strategies should be mindful that digital and AI assets and capabilities with the potential to create disruptive growth need to be protected from unnecessary bureaucratic burdens common in many traditional companies. To survive and prosper, managers might consider rethinking their operating models for innovation-led growth. The most effective models appear to combine a strategic process with multiple mechanisms for driving innovation development and scale-up. Stryker’s shared service of AI expertise is one example of a contrived core “capability” expected to transform legacy devices into growth engines that could help secure the company’s long-term survival. MedTech CEOs might do well to follow Lobo’s advice and, “lean-in on AI and do not be sceptical.”.
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2 years, 7 months ago

Dr Goyal

Dr. Darsh Goyal
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Best Orthopaedic Specialist in Delhi- Dr Darsh Goyal

 

Dr. Goyal’s Bones & Joint Centre is among the best centres for advanced Arthroscopy/ Laser Surgery and is managed by the finest orthopaedic surgeon in New Delhi. Dr. Darsh Goyal is a renowned Orthopaedic Surgeon who has experience of nearly two decades in knee and shoulder surgery. He has successfully treated more than nine thousand patients. Dr. Darsh has received training from some of the most respected institutes worldwide - NHS England, Hss New York, USA, and Munich, Germany. The centre offers various services - Spine treatment, Knee replacement, ACL treatment, Joint replacement, Hip treatment, etc.

ACL Reconstruction
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2 years, 9 months ago

World Cancer Day 2022

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Over the past decade HealthPad has published ~30 Commentaries on significant developments in cancer therapies. On this World Cancer Day, we would like to share our contribution, to show how scientific knowledge and therapies have progressed to improve the lives of people living with cancer. The genesis of the HealthPad platform owes a lot to Professor Hani Gabra, a cancer expert who, together with many of his colleagues, believe that it is important to provide people with easy and convenient access to premium information to help them make informed medical and lifestyle choices and improve patients’ treatment journeys. 
 
 
In addition to our Commentaries, HealthPad has built a unique and exclusive premium cancer content library of >1,100 videos, which address peoples’ frequently asked questions across several cancer pathways. The videos have been contributed by leading oncologists and scientists from world renowned medical institutions across the world and can be accessed anytime, anywhere, anyhow.
 
We reconfirm HealthPad’s commitment in helping to make cancer less scary by empowering people with the knowledge we have gathered and shared in our Commentaries.
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2 years, 11 months ago

Season's Greetings

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PEACE, HEALTH AND BEST WISHES FOR 2022
from the HealthPad Team
 
The HealthPad Team wishes you and your loved ones a very happy Festive Season and a peaceful and prosperous New Year.

2021 might not have been the year we were hoping it would be, but it has shown once again that when communities work together, great things can be achieved. May this spirit endure once again.

Thank you for your continued support throughout 2021, we look forward to another year together!
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2 years, 11 months ago

Can elephants be taught to dance?

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MedTech
  • MedTechs have built proficiencies to successfully create and market physical devices predominantly for the US and Western European markets
  • To remain relevant in the rapidly changing healthcare ecosystem they will need to develop advanced digital and data capabilities and increase their penetration of Asian markets, which will present challenges for most of them
  • Will companies be forced to decide whether to remain hardware manufacturers or become software enterprises, or can they look both ways and prosper?
  • Given the rate of market changes, the next 5 years represent a window of opportunity for traditional MedTechs to pivot and transform their strategies and business models
 
Can elephants be taught to dance?
MedTech’s strategic challenges
 
MedTechs are at a crossroad of manufacturing physical devices and developing software solutions. Both aim to deliver value by enhancing patient outcomes while reducing costs. Can these two scenarios co-exist, or will industry leaders be forced to choose one or the other?
 
For decades, many companies have displayed a deep-rooted reluctance to transform their business models and adopt digitalization strategies and have used M&A activity to become bigger. This suggests that a significant proportion of MedTech leaders are likely to manage increased competition and changing healthcare ecosystems by accelerating M&A activities, which are familiar to them and require no significant change. However, such activities alone will not future-proof companies. Over the next five years, “informed” MedTechs will benefit by shifting away from their current business models that depend on developing and selling physical products predominantly to hospitals in the US and Western Europe and move toward providing patient-centric software solutions as partners in dynamic, connected international healthcare ecosystems.
 
M&A activity to enhance scale

For decades, M&A activities have helped MedTechs to acquire mature assets to tuck into their existing sales and distribution channels. More than anything, this has assisted them to increase their scale, while optimising their portfolios, reducing competition, and improving profits. Over the past decade, when Western markets became more uncertain, monetary policy tightened, technologies advanced, and global economic growth slowed, MedTechs responded by exploiting the fall in the cost of capital to increase their M&A activities with the main purpose of increasing their scale: bigger was generally perceived by industry leaders to be better.
 
Before the COVID-19 pandemic crisis, 2020 was expected to be a strong year for MedTech’s M&A. However, the disruptive impact of the coronavirus outbreak slowed the industry’s M&A performance, and between July 2019 and June 2020, M&A expenditures plunged by 60% compared to the previous 12-month period. Activity returned in Q3, 2020, and today, although high asset valuations and increasing cost of capital have impacted M&A transactions and re-focused attention on organic growth, there are signs that a M&A buyer’s market is developing, but with a difference.
 
The difference is a significant number of M&A transactions do not appear to be focussed entirely on acquiring scale. While there are still some advantages to increasing scale, there are disadvantages, which include having to integrate and service more customers, more employees, and more institutional investors, and this often contributes to strategic rigidities.
 
The demise of scale

The significance of scale was first elaborated in 1937 by Nobel economics laureate Ronald Coase in his seminal paper, The Nature of the Firm, and ~50 years later, repeated by Michael Porter in his book, Competitive Advantage. Both Coase and Porter suggested that scale gained from reducing the ratio of overhead to production would increase the power of firms in markets. In 2013, Rita McGrath challenged this thesis in, The End of Competitive Advantage, by suggesting that bigger was not necessarily better. According to McGrath, in an increasingly high-tech environment, more important than size, is whether enterprises have access to technical capabilities, which can drive top-line growth in dynamic market settings.


Recapitalized MedTech’s M&A firepower
 
According to a 2020 report on the state of the MedTech industry, published by EY, a consulting firm, between July 2019 and June 2020, MedTechs took advantage of low interest rates, and financing levels more than doubled to a record US$57.1bn compared to the previous 12 months; with >40% resulting from debt financing. Thus, as we emerge from restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a lot of liquidity in the market and larger MedTechs have significant M&A firepower. Will they use this to become bigger, or will they use their capital to make strategic investments in new technologies and to penetrate large rapidly growing Asian markets?
M&A driving a shift to digital health

In H1,2021, the MedTech sector recorded a total of 33 M&A deals, up from 25 in the whole of 2020. There is some evidence to suggest that some companies in the sector are using their renewed M&A firepower to acquire high growth digital and AI opportunities that can be integrated into their existing product offerings to provide access to new revenue streams and help companies pivot away from being solely dependent upon manufacturing physical devices. We briefly describe four such deals.
 
In January 2020, as the first COVID-19 case was reported in the US, Boston Scientific paid US$0.925bn for Preventice, a developer of mobile health solutions and remote monitoring services, which connect patients and caregivers. Its digitally enabled service has the potential to reduce healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes. In February 2020,  Medtronic, acquired, for an undisclosed sum, Digital Surgery, a London-based privately-held pioneer in surgical AI, data and analytics. The acquisition is expected to accelerate Medtronic’s plans to incorporate AI and data into its laparoscopic and robotic-assisted surgery platforms. In December 2020 Philips acquired BioTelemetry for US$2.8bn. BioTelemetry is a US-based provider of remote cardiac diagnostics and monitoring, with offerings in wearable heart monitors and AI-based data analytics and services. The deal provides Philips with the capability to expand its remote monitoring business outside of hospitals and into lower cost day-care settings and patients’ homes. One of the largest healthcare deals of 2020 was Teladoc’s US$18.5bn acquisition of Livongo, a remote patient monitoring company, founded in 2014, to build a cloud-based diabetes management programme, linking a person’s glucose monitor to personalized coaching to help control blood sugar levels. In 2019, just one year before Teladoc’s acquisition, Livongo IPO’d at a valuation of US$355m, and expanded its products and services to cover high blood pressure and behavioural health with an ultimate goal of leveraging digital medicine to address “the health of the whole person”. 
 
These four acquisitions are from market segments, which run parallel to traditional medical devices and are often perceived by some MedTech executives to be competitors destined to be controlled by giant tech companies such as Apple, Huawei, and Samsung. However, given the rate at which technology is developing, the speed at which MedTech and pharma are converging, and the renewed liquidity in the market, it might be more efficacious for MedTechs to view such specialised digital health companies as partners rather than competitors.
 
Technologies helping MedTechs to develop actionable solutions

Today, many new biomedical technologies are being developed and benefit from continuous miniaturization, enhanced battery life, cost reductions and increasing data storage capacity. One such technology is photoplethysmography (PPG), a non-invasive, uncomplicated, and inexpensive optical measurement method that employs a light source and a photodetector to calculate the volumetric variations of blood circulation. PPG is employed in smartphones and wearables that are used by billions of people worldwide. There is a large and growing global research endeavour to develop more effective and sophisticated PPG algorithms that could be attached to traditional, non-active medical devices and implants to provide accurate and reliable real time monitoring of a wide range of conditions.
 
Outside of specific health monitoring technologies, few MedTechs collect, store, and analyse data generated by their existing traditional devices and implants, and even fewer use such data to facilitate real time, monitoring of conditions. However, some companies are beginning to transform their dumb devices into intelligent ones to gain access to new revenue streams. For example Zimmer-Biomet’s “smart” knee, utilizes a biosensor [an analytical device that uses natural biological materials to detect and monitor virtually any activity or substance] to generate self-reports on patient activity, recovery, and treatment failures, without the need for physician intervention and dependence upon patient compliance. 
 
According to Roger Kornberg, Professor of Structural Biology at Stanford University and Nobel Laureate for Chemistry, “the excitement of biosensors pertains to their microscopic size and the ease with which they can transmit wirelessly in real time information about responses to treatment from an implantable device within the body”. [See video below].
 
A fast-growing field of AI is tiny machine learning (TinyML), which has the capability to perform on-device, real time, sensor data analytics at extremely low power, typically in the mW [one thousandth of a watt] range and below. The technology is expected to make always-on use-cases economically viable and accelerate the transformation of dumb devices and implants into smart ones.
 
 
Changing traditional R&D models
 
In their search for innovative healthcare solutions, MedTechs might consider increasing their R&D spend and reorganizing their R&D function. MedTech’s R&D spend, as a percentage of revenues, has slowed compared to levels the industry recorded prior to the 2007 financial crash. Overall, the industry tends to allocate more of its capital to share buybacks and investor dividends than to R&D. This strategy may please shareholders in the short term, but it suggests some uncertainty among industry leaders about how to invest for growth in the longer term and could have a medium- to long-term potential downside. 
 
Further, a significant percentage of R&D spend goes on tweaking existing products rather than creating new ones. Given that the future of the industry is dependent upon innovation, it seems reasonable to suggest that, as competition increases and markets tighten, MedTechs will need to consider increasing their R&D resources and capabilities to develop innovative technologies that provide improved actionable solutions across entire patient journeys.

Unlocking value from R&D innovations might require a different culture and new operating models to the ones that tend to prevail today. Instead of lengthy R&D cycles fixed on the launch of a physical product, it could be more beneficial to focus on developing minimum-viable patient-centric solutions, which research teams can deploy early, test, learn from and enhance. Moreover, R&D strategy sessions might benefit by including a mandatory question: “In the near- to medium-term, are there any evolving technologies likely to disrupt a specific market segment important to our company?”.
 
The potential of innovative technologies to disrupt markets
 
To illustrate the significance of this question, consider traumatic brain injury (TBI), which each year affects ~69m individuals worldwide. There is no cure for the condition, and the cornerstone of its management is to monitor intracranial pressure (ICP). [Pressures >15 millimetres of mercury (mm Hg) are considered abnormal, and ICP >20 mm Hg is deemed pathological]. An ICP monitor is expected to be easy to use, accurate, reliable, reproducible, inexpensive and should not be associated with either infection or haemorrhagic complications. Currently, the gold-standard is to drill a small burr hole in the skull, insert a catheter and place it in a cavity [ventricle] in the brain, which is filled with cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). Such an invasive intraventricular catheter system is accurate and reliable, but it is also a health-resource-intensive modality, which runs a risk of haemorrhage and infection. Recent advances in PPG and other technologies have accelerated research developing non-invasive techniques to continuously measure and monitor ICP, which in the medium-term, could replace the gold standard and avoid drilling a hole in a traumatised patient’s skull.   
  
Pros and cons of the COVID-19 crisis

One beneficial outcome for MedTechs of the COVID-19 crisis has been the change in regulatory norms, which favour innovation. In the US, the FDA reduced barriers to market entry for new devices by increasing its emergency use authorization (EUA), which fast-tracks the availability of medical devices. Also, at the onset of the pandemic, the EU deferred for one year the implementation of its Medical Device Regulation (MDR), which governs the production and distribution of medical devices in Europe. In mid 2021, when governments began removing the outstanding legal restrictions imposed to reduce the impact of the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, some MedTechs, which had invested in remote communication strategies, chose to build on the changes they had made and invest further in digitalization AI strategies, while many others reverted to their labour-intensive supply channels. According to a June 2021 Boston Consulting Group (BCG) study, “On average, MedTech companies are still spending two to three times more on selling, general, and administrative (SG&A) expenses (as a percent of the costs of goods sold) than the typical technology or industrial company”.
 
A potential disadvantage for MedTechs of the COVID-19 pandemic is that it can lead to an excessive focus on short-term challenges and put off addressing longer-term strategic threats.
 
MedTech executives have never had it so good

Why are some companies reluctant to transform their strategies and business models?

We suggest that a deep-rooted resistance to change results from MedTechs “never having it so good” over a long period. Indeed, for several decades before the global economic crisis in 2007 and 2008, the medical device market was buoyed by limited competition, benign reimbursement policies, aging populations, and a slower pace of technological change compared to today. These factors promoted double-digit growth rates, investor confidence, and solid valuations. This fostered a sense of security among C suites and encouraged “business as usual” agendas, which tended to focus on sharpening legacy products, legacy business models, legacy forms of market access and pricing and legacy capabilities.
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The 2007-8 financial crisis only inflicted a short-lived blow to the industry and most companies bounced back relatively quickly. Throughout the decade that followed, MedTechs maintained solid financial performance, steady growth, investor confidence and robust valuations. Many enterprises across the industry ended 2019 in a strong position, with some trading at 52-week highs and the industry overall growing revenues at ~6%.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic threw some segments of the industry off course by a substantial reduction in elective care. However, by 2H 2021, most MedTechs had recovered, albeit their annual growth in revenues did not recapture the heights of the early years of the 21st century.
 
MedTechs became like elephants

It seems reasonable to suggest that decades of commercial success shaped the mindsets of industry leaders and resulted in MedTechs becoming like elephants. In 1990, James Belasco published, Teaching the Elephant to Dance, in which he likened organizations to elephants. The book describes how trainers shackled young elephants to a stake securely embedded in the ground so that they could not move away despite their efforts. By the time the elephants became fully grown and had the strength to pull the stakes out of the ground, they were so conditioned they did not move and remained in position even though most were no longer tethered to the stakes. The author uses this analogy to warn how companies can become stuck in obsolete working practices, which are obstacles to their future commercial success.

In 1993, IBM, the world’s largest manufacturer of mainframe computers, had become “an elephant” continuing to produce hardware appliances when the industry was embracing software solutions. IBM, which had posted a US$8bn loss, appointed Lou Gerstner, an executive from outside the computer industry, to turn the company around. Nine years later, IBM had become one of the world's most admired companies. In a book published in 2002, entitled, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?, Gerstner described how he successfully changed IBM from a maker of hardware to a service orientated company.
 
A 5-year window of opportunity
 
A doubt as to whether many traditional MedTechs can be taught to dance was sewn in a 2021 BCG study cited above, which suggested that enterprises “do not yet have the capabilities in place to develop and implement a next-generation, omnichannel commercial model”. Ten years from now, the MedTech market is projected to be significantly different to what it is today, and what it has been for the past four decades. However, it seems reasonable to assume that because of its size and growth rate, [~US$0.5tn, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of ~6% and projected to reach US$0.75tn by 2030], many industry leaders will not feel any pressing need to transform their strategies and business models in the short-term.

However, with a rapidly changing healthcare ecosystem, it seems reasonable to suggests that, to remain relevant after 2030, MedTechs will need to use the next five years as a window of opportunity to prepare solutions that enable them to focus on entire patient treatment pathways, create best-in-class distributive services, and develop digital marketing and sales capabilities that help to expand their influence beyond selling hardware. This will require targeting the “right” market segments, developing the “right” solutions, funding in the “right” R&D, creating the “right” playbooks; and recruiting, retaining, and developing the “right” people with the “right” capabilities.
 
From restricted staged events to real time distribution

Companies are rich reservoirs of clinical data and expertise, but the data tend to be kept in silos and distributed intermittently to a limited number of clinicians and providers at “staged” events. Digital technologies can unlock these assets and facilitate real time, online marketing, self-service portals, and virtual engagements; all of which can provide physicians and providers with unprecedented access to knowhow that can help improve the quality of care and reduce costs. However, shifting to such a distributed care model to drive profitability requires developing a digital, remote, marketing and sales force, which is supported by data analytics, virtual demonstrations, automated call reporting, and AI-supported coaching tools.
 
The reduction of obstacles to data rich digital distributed care strategies

While distributed computing and communications systems have significantly enhanced a wide range of commercial organizations, they have yet to take root in MedTech settings, despite data sharing being critical in modern clinical practice and medical research. A challenge for MedTechs is to engage in data sharing that reconciles individual privacy and data utility. This will entail universally agreed AI and machine learning practices. Although there are sophisticated technologies that can help with this, MedTech’s management and information systems’ personnel may not be prepared to effectively reconcile these competing interests and push for universal data standards. According to a US National Institute of Health report, “The lack of technical understanding, the lack of direct experience with these new tools, the lack of confidence in their management, the lack of a peer group of successful adopters (except for a few academic medical organizations), and uncertainties about reasonable risks and expectations all leave conservative organizational managers hesitant to make decisions”. 
 
While the mindsets of some industry leaders appear to be obstacles to change, other obstacles to transformative business models have been reduced. For instance, privacy is now less of an obstacle for data-rich strategies than it once was. Increasingly, patients show a willingness for their clinical and personal data to be used anonymously in the interest of improving healthcare. Further, regulators’ attitudes towards data are changing.  In September 2021 the FDA published its AI enabled devices that are marketed in the US, which embrace the full scale of approvals from 510(k) de Novo authorizations to Premarket (PMA) approvals. The FDA’s initiative comes at a time of continued growth in AI enhanced digital offerings that contribute to a variety of clinical spheres, and the increasing number of companies seeking to enter this space. There are ~130 algorithms approved for clinical use in the US and Europe.
 
A recent report from Frost & Sullivan, a US market research company, suggests that although in the near-term, traditional medical devices will continue to make up the bulk of the market, after 2024, they are expected to grow at only a CAGR of ~2%. By contrast, digitally enhanced medical devices, and algorithms, which facilitate managing patients remotely and non-intrusively, are expected to grow at a CAGR >14% and reach US$172bn by 2024.
 
The shift to low-cost settings

Over the next five years, as technology advances, populations age, healthcare costs escalate, patient expectations continue to rise, and markets tighten, we can expect the shift away from hospitals to outpatient settings and other lower-cost venues to accelerate. This move to a distributed care model is a headwind for traditional MedTechs, whose principal focus is provider systems rather than patients, and a tailwind for new players entering the market unencumbered by legacy supply chains, costs, and infrastructures. According to an EY 2020 study, ~70% of start-ups in the diagnostics segment have products applicable to the point-of-care setting.
 
Corporate venture funds

To help traditional MedTechs dance leaders of medium sized, well capitalized enterprises might consider copying the world’s largest MedTechs and create corporate venture capital (CVC) funds to invest in tech-savvy start-ups. While 7 of the top 10 MedTechs by sales have venture arms, many company leaders shy away from investing in early-stage, unproven technologies. However, CVC funds offer traditional corporates access to innovations and scarce science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) skills, which are necessary to capture and analyse data, deliver enhanced care, and drive biomedical R&D with the potential to improve patient outcomes and lower costs.
 
The latest giant MedTech to launch a CVC fund is Intuitive Surgical. In Q4 2020, the company started disbursing capital from its initial US$100m venture fund to start-ups developing digital tools and precision diagnostics, with an emphasis on minimally invasive care. Intuitive is the world’s largest manufacturer of robotic surgical systems for minimally invasive surgery. Since its lead offering, the da Vinci Surgical System, received FDA approval in 2000, it has been used by surgeons in all 50 US states, ~67 countries worldwide and has performed >8.5m procedures.

In the first three quarters of 2020, CVCs participated in investment rounds worth US$1.2bn, which amounted to >25% of the total venture funding the sector raised. The lion’s share went to products and solutions that address digital therapies, telehealth, and treatments for low-cost settings. Such technologies are positioned to continue receiving significant funding in 2022 and beyond. A 2021 study by Deloitte, a consulting firm, suggests that MedTech start-ups, unencumbered by legacy products and practices have capabilities, which stretch beyond traditional devices that support episodic care, and focus on distributed solutions, which address the full patient journey: from diagnosis to rehabilitation. The study also maintains that technologies employed by these enterprises are getting smarter, with ~70% of them including digital AI capabilities.
 
Further, MedTechs with CVC arms might consider allowing their digital business functions to operate within a different organizational framework, giving them greater decision-making authority and enhanced freedoms.
 
Asia Pacific MedTech markets

Before closing let us briefly draw attention to the increasing significance of the emerging Asia Pacific MedTech markets. For the past 4 decades, industry leaders were not obliged to seriously consider penetrating markets outside the US and Western Europe because ~70% of global MedTech revenues came from the US and Western Europe. However, as Western markets tighten, and become increasingly competitive, attention is moving East towards Asia.

Over two decades ago, a handful of giant MedTechs began investing in Asia, but most companies in the sector preferred not to risk navigating such unfamiliar healthcare territories. An early investor in the region was Medtronic, which, since ~2000, has achieved significant growth from a multi-faceted strategy that included exporting innovative products from the US to China, establishing R&D facilities in China to design products specifically for the needs of the Chinese market, crafting partnerships with Beijing to educate patients in under-served therapeutic areas, and acquiring domestic Chinese MedTech companies.

Because of the current political stand-off between the two countries, such a China strategy is not so feasible as it has been over the past two decades. However, it is worth bearing in mind that Asia is comprised of 48 countries with a combined population of ~5bn, which is projected to reach 8.5bn by 2030, [~60% of the world’s population], with 1 in 4 people >60. In 2020, ~2bn Asians were members of the middle class, and by 2030, this demographic is projected to grow to ~3.5bn. Moreover, health insurance coverage in the region is expanding. By contrast, the middle classes in the US and Western Europe are smaller and growing at lower rates. According to the Pew Research Center in 2018, ~52% of the 258m US adults (>18 years) was considered middle class. The dynamics of the Asian middle class is driving a large and rapidly growing Asian MedTech market, which is on the cusp of eclipsing Europe to become the world’s second largest regional market, growing at a CAGR of ~9%.

Further, the region has become an important source of technological innovation. For example, in 2020, its digital health market was valued at ~US$20bn and projected to grow at a CAGR of ~21% until 2027, when its value is expected to be ~US$80bn. Despite its complexities and unfamiliarity, Asia represents a substantial opportunity for MedTechs. However, for Western enterprises to succeed in Asian markets they will require in depth local knowhow, long term commitments, agility, innovation, and robust strategies that can prosper under fiercely competitive conditions.  
 
Takeaways

MedTechs have built capabilities to develop, launch, market and sell physical devices. With some notable exceptions, few have the capabilities necessary to drive significant growth from digitalization and data strategies. Sharpening traditional commercial procedures and practices alone is unlikely to significantly increase growth, especially when competitors and new entrants have business models that are more effective, promote better patient outcomes and provide greater value to healthcare systems.  

MedTechs could play a significant role in the transformation of healthcare, but not without risks and some significant changes to the way they operate. Over the next five years, as competitive pressures increase, industry leaders have a window of opportunity to pivot. Here are six strategic questions that might help in this regard:
  1. Should we support significant investments in digitalization, and data analytics to improve our supply chains and R&D endeavours to convert dumb devices and implants into smart ones?
  2. What are the top three actionable innovations that we can develop in the near-term to provide access to new revenue streams?
  3. What are the top three technologies likely to disrupt our product offerings in the near- to medium-term and what should we do about them?
  4. Can we remain a hardware manufacturer while developing significant software solutions that embrace entire patient journeys or must we choose between manufacturing and software?
  5. How do we create valuable solutions that enhance patient journeys from data?
  6. How are global markets changing in ways that are not reflected in our company’s discussions?
The answers to these questions will help to shape a corporation’s strategy, and inform M&A and CVC activities, “must have” capabilities, desired partnerships, R&D spend and agendas, and the type of business models to pursue. All critical for teaching elephants to dance.
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3 years ago

Republishing: Slowing the steep rise of antimicrobial resistance

HealthPad
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antibiotic resistance
antibiotics
antimicrobial resistance
commentary
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coVID-19 pandemic
Because of recent concerns raised by the UK’s Health Security Agency (UKHSA),colleagues suggested that we republish a Commentary entitled, “Slowing the steep rise in antimicrobial resistance”, which features Nobel Laureate Roger Kornberg. Since it was first published it has received >15,000 openings. UKHSA warned of a “hidden pandemic” this winter because last year, in the UK, 1 in 5 infections were resistant to antibiotic. The organization feared that as COVID-19 restrictions are lifted social mixing is likely to spread infections some of which will be resistant to antibiotics.
 
  • Currently 700,000 people die each year from Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) and this could rise to 10 milion by 2050
  • AMR could make routine surgeries and childbirth as dangerous and lethal as in the pre-antibiotic era killing millions and costing trillions worldwide
  • Doctors inappropriately prescribing antibiotics for minor aliments shorten the useful life of antibiotics threatening modern medicine as there is an antibiotic pipeline deficiency
  • 90% of GPs feel pressured by patients to prescribe antibiotics
  • 70% of GPs are unsure whether sore throat and respiratory infections are viral or bacterial resulting in 50% of sore throats receiving antibiotics
  • Clinical diagnosis leads to 50% of patients with a sore throat being prescribed antibiotics without having Group A Streptococcal infection
  • 30% of patients with pharyngitis will not be treated but will be infected with Group A Streptococci
  • 24% of doctors say they lack easy-to-use diagnostic tools
  • 10m prescriptions for antibiotics are handed out in England each year to patients who do not need them
  • A Nobel Laureate has developed a new technology to provide rapid, accurate, cost-effective diagnosis of bacterial sore throat resulting in informed prescribing and reducing unnecessary antibiotic usage
 
Slowing the steep rise of antimicrobial resistance
 
Should we listen when a professor of medicine and a Nobel Laureate says that the technology already exists to develop a cheap hand held device, which can rapidly and accurately diagnose a bacterial sore throat?  
 
Without such a device to determine whether minor ailments require antibiotics, doctors will continue to prescribe them, and thereby contribute to the steep rise in Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR). In 2016 the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the UK government's NHS watchdog, reported that as many as 10m prescriptions for antibiotics are handed out in England every year to patients who do not need them. According to a 2016 report on AMR, by 2050 a staggering, “10m people will die from AMR each year . . . . The world needs rapid diagnostics to improve our use of antibiotics,” says the report.
 
Sore throat
 
Acute throat infections are among the most common infectious diseases presented to primary healthcare and A&E departments and are frequently misdiagnosed. They are responsible for 2 to 4% of all primary care visits. Viruses cause 85% to 95% of throat infections in adults and children younger than 5. For those aged 5 to 15, viruses cause about 70% of throat infections, with the other 30% due to bacterial infections, mostly group A β-hemolytic streptococcus (GAS), which can cause 0.5m deaths a year. There are challenges in diagnosing GAS because its signs and symptoms are often indistinguishable from viral and other causes of sore throat.
 
If a doctor intends to treat suspected GAS pharyngitis, it is generally recommended that laboratory confirmation of the presence of GAS be sought to limit unnecessary antibiotic prescription. The gold standard laboratory investigation is of a bacterial culture of a throat swab. However, this is expensive, and there is a relatively long lag time between the collection of the specimen and final microbiological diagnosis: so doctors tend not to it. 
 
Rapid antigen diagnostic tests (RADTs) are an alternative to the gold standard laboratory test for GAS. However, widespread use of RADTs has been hindered by low sensitivity for most commonly used RADTs (immunoassays). Reviews of RADTs performance have identified significant variability in the diagnostic accuracy, especially sensitivity, between different test methodologies.
 
Urgent need for rapid and accurate diagnostic test
 
A principal recommendation of a 2016 report on AMR is to ban doctors from prescribing antibiotics until they have carried out rapid tests to prove the infection is bacterial. The report also stresses that doctors need urgent help to temporise their use of antibiotics if AMR is to be reduced.

Notwithstanding, the AMR challenge is bigger than doctors overprescribing antibiotics. Farmers feed antibiotics to livestock and poultry, and spray them on crops to make our food supply ‘safer’. We dump antibiotics in rivers, and even paint them on the hulls of boats to prevent the build up of barnacles. However, it seems reasonable to suggest that successfully reducing doctors’ over prescribing antibiotics would represent a significant contribution to denting the burden of AMR. To do this, “We need a step change in the technology available . . . Governments of the richest countries should mandate now that, by 2020, all antibiotic prescriptions will need to be informed by up to date surveillance and a rapid diagnostic test,” urges the AMR report.
 
The technological ‘step change’, which the report says is essential, has already been achieved, says Roger Kornberg, Professor of Medicine at Stanford University and Nobel Laureate for Chemistry. “Advanced biosensor technology enables virtually instantaneous, extraordinarily sensitive, electronic detection of almost any biomarker (protein, nucleic acid, small molecule, etc.). With relatively modest resources it would only be a matter of months to develop a simple, affordable handheld device, which not only would tell you immediately and accurately whether a sore throat requires antibiotics or not, but would also tell you which antibiotics you require, and for how long you should take them,” says Kornberg. See videos below in which Kornberg describes how tried and tested biosensor technology could facilitate rapid and accurate diagnosis of a sore throat.


Click to watch a cluster of videos by Professor Kornberg on Antimicrobial resistance and biosensor technology
Serious and growing threat
 
Each year, millions of people throughout the developed world present themselves to their doctors with minor ailments, such as a sore throat. 97% of these patients demand antibiotics although 90% of their ailments are viral and therefore do not require antibiotics. 90% of doctors, who do not have the means to rapidly and accurately determine whether a minor ailment requires antibiotics, feel pressured by patients to prescribe them.
 
A 2014 study of four million NHS patients from 537 GP practices in England found that more than 50% of those presenting with a minor ailment were prescribed antibiotics, despite warnings that the medication will not help, but increases their risk of developing resistance. The study, by scientists at Public Health England and University College London, published in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, found that antibiotic prescriptions for minor ailments increased by some 40% between 1999 and 2011. 70% of GPs surveyed said they prescribed antibiotics because they were unsure whether patients had viral or bacterial infections, and 24% of GPs said it was because of a lack of an easy-to-use, rapid and accurate diagnostic device.
 
Superbugs will kill millions and cost trillions
 
Concerned about the rising levels of drug resistance whereby microbes evolve to become immune to known drugs, in 2014 the UK Government, in collaboration with the Wellcome Trust, commissioned a review of the large and growing global burden of AMR. Jim O’Neill, a former Goldman Sachs chief economist who coined the phrase “BRICS”, was appointed to lead the endeavour and propose actions to tackle AMR. In 2015 O’Neill was elevated to the House of Lords, and appointed Secretary to the UK government’s Treasury.

During the 18 months it took O’Neill to complete his final report, one million people worldwide died from AMR. At least 25,000 people die each year in Europe from AMR. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 2m people in the US become infected with resistant bacteria every year, and at least 23,000 of them die. According to O’Neill, “If we don't do something about antibiotic resistance, we will be heading towards a world with no-antibiotic treatments for those who need them.”
 
A threat to modern medicine
 
O’Neill’s findings are congruent with warnings from the World Health Organization (WHO), which suggests AMR is a crisis worse than the Aids epidemic – which has caused some 25m deaths worldwide – and threatens to turn the clock back on modern medicine. The misuse of antibiotics has created, “A problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine. A post-antibiotic era, in which common infections and minor injuries can kill, far from being an apocalyptic fantasy, is instead a very real possibility for the 21st century,” says a 2014 WHO report. “Superbugs risk making routine surgery potentially lethal, killing millions and costing the world economy US$100 trillion a year by the middle of the century,” says O’Neill.
 
These dire warnings are supported by a case study of AMR published in Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in 2016, which suggests that we might be closer to a "post-antibiotic era" than we think. A particular group of bacteria (Gram-negative) have become increasingly resistant to currently available antimicrobial drugs. Colistin is one of the only antibiotics that still show some effectiveness against such infections, but the study suggests that even Colistin may no longer be effective.
 
Takeaways
 
AMR is widely recognized as a serious and growing worldwide threat to human health. New forms of AMR continue to arise and spread, leaving doctors with few weapons to bring potentially life-threatening infections under control. The injudicious use of antimicrobials, and the proliferation of AMR pathogens are compounded by the inability to rapidly and accurately diagnose minor ailments such as sore throats. Professor Kornberg has an answer.
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