Originally Published MX January/February
2002

MARKET ANALYSIS

Medtech Forecast
for 2002

When the winds
of change are blowing, it’s best to have a whole crew of weathermen on
board.

In the waning days
of 2001, the buzz among economists and market analysts was that the year’s
recession had bottomed out and that full economic recovery would follow soon.




According to many economists, the evidence in favor of a speedy recovery for
the U.S. economy seemed to be all around us: rebounding public confidence, low
interest rates and petroleum prices, and no signs of inflation. Analysts seemed
just as eager for the start of a new bull market, declaring that small-cap growth
stocks were likely to be the big winners in the early phases of the market recovery.
Nearly all such economy watchers projected that recovery would be in full swing
by the middle of 2002.

Inevitably, that’s
good news for medtech manufacturers—and especially for the many small,
entrepreneurial companies whose survival depends upon access to funding of various