The 20 largest medical device companies in the world

The information in this year’s annual Big 100 rankings of the world’s largest medical device companies is as interesting as ever.

The 100 companies on this year’s list had medical device businesses bringing in a whopping $420.5 billion during their most recent fiscal years — a nearly 6% increase from the 2019 Big 100. But with many fiscal years ending in December 2019, Medical Design & Outsourcing and MassDevice will have to wait until next year to truly gauge the effect that the coronavirus and resulting recession had on the industry.

Medical device companies certainly weren’t recession-proof this time around. The pandemic has caused a curtailment of elective procedures — and sometimes even not-so-elective procedures — as health providers focus on managing COVID-19 and patients stay away in droves. Major companies have generally reported a recovery in procedure volume in the third quarter of 2020, but we’ll have to see whether the trend holds up as a new wave of coronavirus cases hits the U.S. and Europe.

Today, we’re going to count down Nos. 20–11 on the list. After that, it’s the top 10.

Read on to find out important information about medtech’s largest companies.

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The Big 100 is a team effort. Senior editor Danielle Kirsh compiles the data — examining companies’ annual reports early each year, as soon as the prior year’s financials begin to trickle in. We compile the listings and rank the companies according to annual revenues, then R&D spending and number of employees. Once the numbers are collected, we attempt to contact each of the 100 companies to confirm our findings.

Executive editor Chris Newmarker and assistant editor Sean Whooley wrote the company profiles.