Impact of Coronavirus (Covid-19) Pandemic on the Medical Devices Industry

COVID-19 has disrupted medical devices industry. Hospitals are struggling to operate owing to the shortage of masks, ventilators, and tests amid increasing spread of COVID-19 among the people. With sudden surge in the demand for PPE, medical device manufacturers are experiencing challenges in meeting the demands, leading to imbalance in the supply and demand. As countries with higher number of cases (U.S., France, Italy, Spain, Russia, U.K., France, Brazil, Germany, Turkey, China, and Iran among others) plan for aggressive testing of COVID-19, companies such as Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Everly Well, Inc., and Abbott Laboratories are currently focusing on manufacturing of COVID-19 detection tests. Thermo Fisher projected that the company can produce about 5 million test kits every week; and Abbott received (April 2020) an EU approval for a point-of-care test kit that can produce results in minutes. Moreover, in April 2020, National Institute of Virology, Pune, India successfully developed the 1st indigenous anti-SARS-CoV-2 human IgG ELISA test kit for antibody detection of COVID-19. Increasing spread of COVID-19 has changed the dynamics of the healthcare care service providers, turning the hospital beds, equipment, and rooms as breeding grounds for the coronavirus. As always in crucial times, regulatory landscape is acting as a key challenge for medical device companies, for necessary compliances for the approval of the devices. Having said that, regulatory compliance norms have been ease for the medical device products used to address the COVID-19 pandemic challenges. For example, China has expedited the registration process for medical protective clothing, if it meets regulatory standards from Japan, the European Union, or the United States (April 2020). Furthermore, Singapore has exempted the registration requirements of certain devices, such as particulate respirators, protective gear, surgical masks, and thermometers during COVID-19 pandemic (April 2020).

The reports from Coherent Market Insights considers and evaluates the impact of the COVID-19, and anticipated change on the future outlook of this industry, by taking into the account the political, economic, social, and technological parameters.