Competition Between Medical Device Companies And Pharma Could Stimulate Early Stage Acquisition Strategies
It’s a familiar story in the pharmaceutical industry: larger companies seek to fill their product pipelines by purchasing start-ups that can deliver promising drugs backed by strong clinical evidence gathered through early-stage trials. Although not quite as predatory, the same environment exists in the world of medical devices, with bigger players courting upstarts in a bid to short-cut around substantial investment in research and development.
A recent article posted on the Life Science Nation blog posits that the convergence of the pharmaceutical and medical device industries in certain areas of medical care could see an acceleration of this type of acquisition strategy in the medical device world. The crux of the issue is the ability of medical devices to present a more targeted treatment strategy when dealing with specific conditions, such as heart disease or diabetes – a potential stepping on the toes of pharma companies that could see them begin to stretch into the medical device sphere and acquire a foothold of their own.
What does this mean for industry players? The ability to bring a medical device to market more rapidly than a drug adds significant value to crossover treatment areas. The potential for this convergence to drive investment in medical device companies – as well as encourage larger device manufacturers to aggressively purchase smaller device organizations in an effort to hold back the onslaught of pharma capital – could represent an important change in how medical device business is conducted in the future. More money available in the industry typically means better outcomes for patients, and the ability to investigate innovative treatments that might have been passed over in a less competitive marketplace. It also introduces a greater incentive for talented individuals to found greater numbers of start-up medical device companies in an effort to participate in the increase in investment and consolidation that could result in this future scenario.
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Benjamin Hunting
Aptiv Solutions Blogging Team