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Medical technology involves the utilisation of equipment which functions to prevent, diagnose or treat a specific disease. Globally, the medical technology industry is worth over $455.3bn and is projected to reach over $657.9bn in 2028, with a CAGR of 5.4%. The European medical technology market in particular generated over $157.5bn in 2020, and over 7.4% of all European healthcare spending in 2018 was spent on medical technology. Europe as a region is rapidly emerging as an established centre of medical technology after the US.
Germany has the largest market share within the European medical technology market, followed by France, the UK, Italy, Switzerland and Spain. As of 2019, there were almost 27,000 medical technology companies in Europe, with small and medium sized companies (SMEs) making up almost 95% of the European medical technology industry. Of these SMEs in Europe, the majority can be further sub-classed into small and micro-sized companies, with a company size of less than 50 people.
In Europe, an average of 10% GDP is spent on national healthcare, and of this expenditure, around 7.2% is attributed to medical technologies, accounting for less than 1% of overall GDP. However, spending on medical technology varies greatly between individual countries, and can range from 5% to 10% of total healthcare expenditure by country. Overall, spending on medical technology within Europe was estimated at around $213 per capita in 2019. In vitro diagnostics is currently the largest sector in the European medical device market, predicted to hold a market share of 12.9% by 2024, with cardiology, diagnostic imaging, orthopaedics and ophthalmics following in the market share.
There are several increasing trends in medical technology which has allowed an acceleration of the European market in recent years. The rising trend for medical wearables devices, such as health monitoring or therapeutic tracking devices, is anticipated to drive the demand for medical technology in the upcoming years. In addition, the increased application of artificial intelligence (AI) in medical technology, such as in these wearables devices, in addition to remote patient monitoring devices, innovative surgical technologies, and the application of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) is expected to propel the European market. One example of HER application is in the UK national health service (NHS), which has set a goal of achieving “core digitalisation” across all healthcare services by 2024. This application in the UK and similarly in other European countries is expected to rapidly accelerate the growing European medical technology market in the years to come.
