COVID-19 is here: Medtech may never be the same
These medical devices are getting ready to launch in 2020
How are alternative ventilators helping during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Could refurbished ventilators be a secret weapon against COVID-19?
Medtech contract manufacturers make it work during a pandemic
A Lost Year? Let’s make 2020 matter
The COVID-19 pandemic has entirely changed the world since Medical Design & Outsourcing last published in March.
Our editorial team, our WTWH Media colleagues — we’re all navigating sheltering in place at home as we do the work and crank out the medtech stories that hopefully help people navigate this crisis.
The mounting death toll around the world fills me with sadness, and yet I also marvel at the little moments of courage as people seek to get through their days and still make a difference. Taking our family on end-of-day walks, my wife and I talk about the swimming and soccer classes canceled, the concerts and sporting events we’re not going to watch. We wonder if people someday are going to say that 2020 was a “Lost Year.”
And yet as I write this editorial, the words of the ancient Romans come to mind: “Fortune favors the brave.”
The need to respond to the coronavirus catastrophe has created opportunity for innovation. In fact, the moment demands that we produce meaningful change. It’s little wonder that the pageviews on our MassDevice and MDO news sites have skyrocketed since the pandemic began: In many ways, this is medtech’s moment.
Our team of editors in this issue provide a glimpse of what is already taking place:
- My colleague Tom Salemi, who is editorial director of our DeviceTalks events, surveys industry insiders and finds a host of medtech trends accelerating — from making hospitals more efficient and effective to digital manufacturing to virtual prototyping. (Tom is being inventive himself, with plans for virtual DeviceTalks events.)
- Assistant editor Sean Whooley writes of the university research teams who have partnered with industry to cobble together medical ventilator alternatives to help fill shortages of the life-saving devices during the pandemic.
- Managing editor Nancy Crotti latched on to another effort to solve the ventilators dilemma: refurbishing old ventilators. She also covers the heroic efforts of medical device industry suppliers to rapidly shift their operations in response to the crisis.
- And last but certainly not least, senior editor Danielle Kirsh describes the significant new devices that medtech companies are still planning to launch this year, even as they grapple with COVID-19.
It’s worth noting, too, that we’re engaged in a great deal of innovation within our Life Sciences publications here at WTWH Media. For example, I’ve enjoyed reaching out to Tom every Thursday to record the new DeviceTalks Weekly podcast he produces (www.devicetalks.com/podcast). And Danielle helped our tech folks create a MedTech 100 Index (index.medicaldesignandoutsourcing.com) so that our readers can track the average stock performance of the world’s largest medical device companies.
On top of MassDevice and MDO, we also have an expanding roster of news sites: Medical Tubing + Extrusion, Drug Discovery & Development, Pharmaceutical Processing World, and Drug Delivery Business News.
Stay tuned, because we’ll have many more exciting things to announce in coming months. In the meantime, stay safe and healthy.
– Chris Newmarker, Executive Editor
