The German healthcare industry has enormous potential to grow and provide opportunities for U.S medical technology exports according to the “U.S Commercial Service Healthcare Technologies Resource Guide 2014”.
Demand for medical supplies is mainly driven by demographics and a substantial increase in the number of patients. Germany’s population still accounts for 20 percent of the total population in Western Europe and is increasingly aging. By 2050, the 65 and over age group is forecasted to expand to 23 million.
In treating an increase in older people, the country will need to have up-to-date diagnostic equipment to detect chronic diseases in their early stages, have to provide specialized wound care along with easy-to-use home care products for diabetes, orthopedic appliances, and dialysis equipment.
In Germany, one-third of sales are generated by devices that are less than three years old and about nine percent of all sales are reinvested in research. More than two-thirds of German physicians are seeing innovations as the key element needed to maintain high standards for the German healthcare system.
The German market for medical devices is sophisticated with just a handful of large producers, Ninety five percent of the German medical technology industry is characterized by small and heterogeneous companies or sub groups of larger companies.
There is a stable demand for high quality advanced diagnostic and therapeutic equipment along with minimally invasive equipment needed for vascular surgery, urology, dermatology, and neurosurgery.
Future trends are heading towards wearable and wireless medical technologies. At the same time, the demand for specialized software to secure wireless medical devices against cybercrime and malware is expected to increase. The German medical market is also expected to trend towards personalized medicine.
More than 20 projects involving telemedicine applications, telemonitoring, and Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) have been conducted over the past few years in Germany but unfortunately the projects do not usually succeed in going past the project phase.
The eHealth Initiative launched in 2010 by the Federal Ministry of Health in investigating why the projects don’t advance beyond the project phase, found that legal, financial, and issues related to standards need to be resolved to further develop applications for tele-diagnostics and tele-consultations.
The “MEDICA with Compamed Trade Fair” at www.medica-tradefair.com considered to be the world’s most important and largest international fair for medical equipment will be held November 12-14, 2014 in Dusseldorf Germany.
The annual MEDICA draws 147,000 trade visitors from more than 70 countries with over 4,500 exhibitors from 80 foreign countries. Parallel to MEDICA, the trade fair Compamed will take place as the marketplace for suppliers to the medical manufacturing industry with 600 exhibitors from 40 countries.
To view the report, go to http://export.gov/industry/health/index.asp. For more information email Anette Salama Senior Commercial Specialist at anette.salama@trade.gov or call +49-211-737767-60. To contact local healthcare trade specialists by state through www.export.gov, go to http://export.gov/industry/healthcare/eg_main_018721.asp.