The year 2020 was a tumultuous one for the global medical devices market. However, by early 2021, nearly all segments of the market that had been initially impacted by the decline in sales had recovered to pre-pandemic levels. Against this backdrop, the market is set to continue its pre-pandemic growth to exceed a total market size of $700bn in 2030, estimates GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

A GlobalData market analysis of total medical device sales across key therapy areas such as cardiovascular, orthopedics, general surgery, in vitro diagnostics, among others, has revealed the severity of the overall impact of COVID-19 on the industry, coupled with their mostly remarkably rapid rate of recovery.

Brian Hicks, Senior Analyst of Medical Devices at GlobalData, comments: “In January 2021, when the case numbers due to the spread of the Alpha variant had peaked, many elective procedures had once again been postponed. Upon investigating the total healthcare spend in the US, it became clear that the corresponding cancellation of many procedures had resulted in a temporary decline in medical device sales down to March 2020 levels.”

Not surprisingly, however, the market had swiftly recovered in just two months’ time and remained mostly stable then on.

Hicks adds: “The financial statements throughout 2021 by some of the largest medical device companies indicate strong recovery for most of their business units, although the duration and sustainability of their recent growth remains volatile. This is primarily due to the ongoing race of global vaccinations and administration of booster shots against the emergence of potentially even more fatal variants of concern, such as the Omicron variant, which may induce additional cancellations of elective procedures.”

Excluding the sizeable ‘in vitro diagnostics’ and ‘hospital supplies’ markets, which had both grown significantly from the onset of the pandemic, GlobalData has calculated the remaining overall medical devices market to exceed $335bn in 2021, which reflects an over 20% year over year growth and even a 2.4% growth in comparison to 2019 levels.

Hicks concludes: “While GlobalData forecasts the market to continue its pre-pandemic growth to reach a total market size exceeding $700bn by 2030, an increasing prevalence of Omicron variant cases leading to yet another round of elective surgery cancellation may hinder this growth rate. Such cancellations have already begun in parts of New York state, and the likelihood of this trend spreading to other states and countries remains high.”