Il link between technology and medicine it's getting tighter and tighter. This is certified by the analysis of the Mediobanca Studies Area which analyzed the annual accounts of the 227 largest Italian MedTech companies with aggregate turnover of 18,6 billion.
All the numbers of the world MedTech
According to the report, in 2021 the worldwide MedTech turnover amounted to 535,6 billion euros, with an average annual growth forecast of 5,7% to reach 632,6 billion in 2024. To date, the sector represents 5,5% of expenditure healthcare, develops investments in research for 33 billion euros, over 6% of turnover.
The world market is divided into two branches: on the one hand there are the Medical Devices, whose value reached 439 billion with growth forecasts of 5,9% on average per year; on the other there is in vitro diagnostics, which is worth 97 billion euros and is expected to grow at an average annual rate of 4,9%.
“MedTech also grew in 2020 (+6,8%), thanks to the exceptional use of some products related to the fight against the pandemic (masks, cannulas, syringes, antigen tests, ventilation tools), while other specialties suffered , such as orthopedic and dental, whose services have been delayed. The major demographic trends linked to the lengthening of life expectancy are now returning to support the sector for the years to come”, reads the report.
The geography of MedTech
Geographically it is the North America to excel in the global MedTech market, with sales of 193 billion euros in 2021 (36% of the total). Followed by Europe with 155 billion (28,9%) and Asia with 136 billion (25,5%).
For the different specialties, the one with the highest turnover is cardiology (57,7 billion +8% forecast), followed by diagnostic imaging (50,1 billion, +3,2%), orthopedics (39,4 billion, +3,1% 33,6%) and from general and plastic surgery (11 billion, +XNUMX%).
MedTech in Europe and Italy
As mentioned, European MedTech is worth 155 billion euros. The segment of medical devices (MDs) excels in the old continent with a turnover of 140 billion (31,9% of the world total), compared to 15 billion (15,3% of the world total) of diagnostics in vitro.
The European panorama is dominated by Germany with 41,7 billion (26,9% of the total), ahead of France with 23,5 billion (15,2%), the United Kingdom with 17,8 billion (11,5%) and to Italy with 17,2 billion (11,1%). It's Italy?
According to the study, our country has a position of greater importance in in vitro diagnostics, where it represents 12,7% of the European market, for a turnover of 1,9 billion, making it the third largest producer.
To date, Italy represents is also the sixth exporter in the EU-27 with 4,3 billion euros preceded by Germany (28,4 billion euros), the Netherlands (25,5 billion), Ireland (11,5 billion), Belgium (9,8 billion) and France (7,4 billion ) and 13th world exporter. “The main outlet markets for Italian exports are the United States (11,6% of the total exported), followed by Germany and France (both 9,3%)”, underlines the report.
Growing Italian companies
Sono 227 the main companies active in the sector, for an aggregate turnover that reached 2020 billion euros in 18,6, of which 8,9 billion from manufacturing companies and 9,7 billion from commercial ones. 102 companies out of 227 are foreign-owned, for a turnover of around 10 billion (53,5% of the total).
“For 2021, one is expected average turnover growth of 6,4%, better on the foreign market (+8,2%) than on the domestic one (+4,7%). The projections for 2022 are also optimistic with a +6,1% on 2021 which breaks down into +6,4% across the border and +5,8% in Italy”, says Mediobanca, underlining that the forecasts add up to a very positive track record in recent years: in the two-year period 2018-2020, Italian MedTech achieved an average annual growth of 7%, with foreign turnover (+9%) outpacing the national one (+5,7% ).
For investments, last year the increase was 9,6%, while for the current year 52% of companies are expected to further increase their investments.
Under the sector profile, the Italian laboratory diagnostics (4,5 billion) and imaging (3,3 billion) companies represent 42% of the total turnover, followed by those operating in the treatment of cardiovascular and cardiopulmonary pathologies (2 billion) and by those of pulmonology and otorhinolaryngology (1,8 billion).
Covid effect on companies in the sector
in 2020 the health emergency pushed the whole sector (+5,8%) with extraordinary exploits for biomedical producers (+19,3% on 2019), those of contrast media, reagents and diagnostic tests (+19%) and laboratory instrumentation (+17,3%). Among the areas of specialisation, we note the performance of personal protective equipment, dressings and surgical instruments (+45,3%) and laboratory diagnostics (+27,4%). The ophthalmology (-12,5%), orthopedics (-11,1%) and dentistry (-9,5%) sectors are suffering.
The entire sector registers a d shareexports amounted to 2020% in 39,9. Within it, prostheses and contrast media, reagents and diagnostic tests excel with 53,8% (51,2%).
Finally, speaking of the other numbers, in 2020 the Italian MedTech scored a Ebit margin of 11,8%, a Roi of 13,4% and a Roe of 15,5%. In terms of Ebit margin, the best sector performances are the prerogative of the specialties most involved in the pandemic emergency: contrast media, reagents and diagnostic tests (21%) and biomedical (16,2%). In terms of areas of application, personal protective equipment, dressings and surgical instruments (23,4%) and laboratory diagnostics (16,8%) stand out for the same reason.
