Did you know that Sweden is in place 5 in Europe when it comes to the number of employed per capita in the medtech industry? Or that Germany alone has 30% of all Europe’s medical technology employees? Medtech Europe has checked the pulse on Europe’s medtech sector.

The US is by far the largest medical technology market; 43% of a population of just over 320 million. Europe accounts for 27% of a population of just over 740 million. By comparison, Brazil and Russia are only 1% each, despite large populations of 190 million and 140 million inhabitants, respectively.

The largest export markets for Europe are the United States, China and Japan. These countries are also the largest importing countries for Europe.

The value of Europe as a medical technology market was estimated to approximately 115 billion euro in 2017.

Europe has a positive trade balance of 19.7 billion euro for the Medical Devices sector, which is more than 10 times higher than the US surplus.

The European countries that export the most are Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and Ireland, all of which have a positive trade balance in the sector. Our neighboring countries, Finland and Denmark, had a trade surplus of 880 million and 628 million euro respectively, while Sweden and Norway showed a trade deficit of 154 million and 659 million euro respectively.

The European medical technology industry employs more than 675,000 people. Germany dominates with 200,000 employees.

The number of employed per capita is highest in Ireland (79/10000 inhabitants) and Switzerland (69), accompanied by Denmark (26), Germany (24) and Sweden (23).

The expenditure on medical technology varies widely in different European countries, but it represents less than 1% of GDP. The weighted average per capita is 213 euro.

There are 27,000 medical technology companies in Europe and the most are in Germany. 95% of the companies are so-called SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises, 10–249 employees with up to 50 million euros in turnover).

The growth rate in Europe in the sector has been 4.3% on average over the past 10 years.

Medical technology as a sector accounts for most applications in Europe with over 13,000 patent applications, and the trend is rising.

The life cycle of a medical device (the time period before an improved product is on the market) is only 18–24 months.

Source: Medtech Europe.

Foto: PublicDomainPictures från Pixabay