What if the Great Recession Never Happened...?What if the Great Recession Never Happened...?

So willingly suspend your disbelief for a minute.

EY (formerly Ernst & Young) released its sixth annual Pulse of the Industry 2013 report about the medtech industry at AdvaMed's annual conference in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday. and two slides jumped out for what could have been.

Iain Scott, an EW analyst who presented the data highlighted a well-known fact that medtech R&D spending has declined as a result of stalled or slower growth. So, what if medtech continued on its previous trajectory of 13% annual growth in the years between 2008 and 2012.

It would mean the industry overall would have had $131 billion more revenue and $12 billion more to spend on R&D. See slides below.

Still, while pointing out how glorious it all could have been, the report also made effort to chart out some strategies companies can take to survive and thrive in the pay-for-value model that is coming.

One thing is clear from the report and the discussion that followed with the panel of senior executives and CEOs is that the patient has to be front and center in operating paradigm of medtech companies in the future.

 [Photo Credit: iStockphoto.com user  VCTStyle]

-- By Arundhati Parmar, Senior Editor, MD+DI
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