Controlled Chaos
The medtech industry was left with more questions than answers this year amid policy shifts and lingering hurdles.
Michael Barbella
Managing Editor, Medical Product Outsourcing
The red flags began cropping up late last year.
New (familiar) U.S. leadership hinted at sweeping changes on the horizon: Cleaning up “corrupt, failing” federal bureaucracies, reducing waste and regulation, extending first-term tax cuts, and restoring fair trade.
Momentous changes. Transformative changes.
The worst of times was near.
Yet unemployment was low, consumer sentiment was good, the stock market was up, and GDP was strong.
Then maybe the best of times was at hand.
Actually, it was a mix of both—the best and worst of times. Any change begets uncertainty, and the unknown can act like a fog, obscuring the path ahead. Business notoriously are averse to unknowns (and change), as it forces them to move beyond their comfort zone, explore new ideas, and adapt to evolving circumstances.
The medtech industry received a crash course in evolving circumstances adaptation this year as companies navigated the ever-shifting storyline of a new (returning) president’s first tumultuous months in office. Coupled with the constant challenges of regulatory compliance, cybersecurity risks, pricing pressures, and reimbursement complexities, the medtech sector experienced a year that seemed to come straight from Charles Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities.”
As Sheryl Jacobson, consulting medtech practice leader at Deloitte quipped in January, “It is clearly an industry in a significant state of flux… it was a year of the best of times and the worst of times without a clear high and a low, just a lot of turmoil and change. For 2025, that is absolutely going to continue.”
And continue it did.
Read the full article at Medical Product Outsourcing.