Why Mexico Is Still Challenging for Medtech Designers

By Miguel Angel Torres Tello and Carlos Alfonso Rodríguez Sierra

Mexico is recognized as one of the top Latin American markets for medical devices. But globally, there are still plenty of challenges when it comes to meaningful research and development--and medical device design. 

To start, Mexico is still far behind countries like United States or China. But Mexico also has its advantages.

The Unites States' southern neighbor contains a dynamic medical device industry based on maquila, the manufacturing operations in our nation's free trade zones. For instance, Baja California (Mexico's main medical device cluster) has over 81 medical device exporter companies and has been considered the leading supplier to the U.s..

Regarding Mexico's domestic medical device market, American and European players are dominant when it comes to high-tech solutions. And yet Mexican companies are better positioned in the disposables division. As mentioned before, maquila is the major activity in the medical device industry, which centered its efforts during the last decade in certification processes with ISO 13485, leaving behind the product design chapter for their scope.

Product design has simply not been considered as critical for certification. Frankly, top personnel at Mexican manufacturing companies are risk adverse in their thinking.

This is the scenario that a medical device designer will find in Mexico. In other words, a specialist must confront a working environment that demands technical personnel for maintaining processes--and not engaging in the creative and developing tasks more appropriate for a designer.

The situation is especially daunting for recent graduates in Mexico. Based on experience, biomedical engineers in Mexico usually find job opportunities in three main fields: sales, service/maintenance, and consulting.

Ironically, college departments incentivize product development.

Still, it is worth mentioning that Mexico actually has potential for developing in the medical device sector. In fact, the country has an important role in other product development processes like clinical trials. This means that the ecosystem already has production and trials chains installed--waiting for development to arise.

In addition, another sector of manufacturers has made remarkable efforts when it comes to developing medical equipment such as X-rays, incubators, anesthesia machines and mechanical circulatory supports.

Certainly there are obstacles on this road but also opportunities including a willing task force with experience in clinical trials and manufacturing processes. In addition, the support from government entities including CONACYT (Mexico's National Council of Science and Technology) supports well planned initiatives for development.

In conclusion, we think that a medical device designer in Mexico must be aware that Mexico is not actually a country that motivates research and development. Nevertheless, there are a few players that are becoming the milestone in that sense. These are companies investing on foreign markets (those with high consumption rates) or focused in other developing countries and on which Mexico has free trade agreements.

A designer must therefore weigh how the company he is going to work for--or work with--fits into this complicated scenario. Although challenging, medtech is a field on which some local players are succeeding.

Miguel Angel Torres Tello is business development manager at Emergo Group. Carlos Alfonso Rodríguez Sierra is innovation manager at Grupo Vitalmex.