Medtech Momentum: Mergers, Wearables, and AI

Ciao peers, colleagues, family, and friends! Welcome to another edition of my monthly roundup of interesting industry trends and insights. If you’re a first-time subscriber, welcome!

Investors Corner - Bain & Co. notes that the medtech industry is witnessing a resurgence in merger and acquisition activities but instead of quantity, we’re about to witness mergers that are highly targeted and focus on deal quality with a focus on innovative technologies meant to enhance level of patient care and achieve greater healthcare outcomes. [Bain ] Innovative technologies, attracting investors include AI, remote patient monitoring, and digital health technologies, reflecting a strategic shift towards digital transformation within healthcare [Nasdaq ].

Wearable advancements in Medtech see a consumer boom - companies offering products designed for continuous health monitoring like Ultrahuman are witnessing an increase in consumer demand. The company's line of smart ring and patch-based wearables monitor movement, sleep, heart rate, and glucose levels all trackable by smartphone. Recently the company announced their entrance into the US market with plans to build an ‘UltraFactroy’ in Bangalore, India later this year. Similarly, Samsung has announced plans for their own line of smart rings that will pair with the latest Galaxy line of phones. Be prepared for more consumer advancements like these in months to come. [Medtech Insight ]

Impact of AI means less paperwork as patients demand value for money: The shift to continued digitalization in healthcare has led practitioners to take on new tech to ease their administrative burden. The AI Scribes market is booming, with companies popping up across the sector at an unprecedented rate. The tech allows specialist practitioners to dictate patient notes and receive low-latency transcribed annotations connected to AI-enabled databases in return. This will help with the diagnostic side of things as well as with writing prescriptions as patients increasingly demand a value-based healthcare system able to justify the high prices it charges for basic services. McKinsey analyzes this trend and notes that it means using patient data and predictive analytics to ‘tailor preventive or treatment plans to individual patient needs’ meaning - in theory - lower healthcare costs for healthier patients in the long term.?

Boring jobs are too boring for Gen-Z. Over-reliance on a cheap and highly educated workforce has come to an end with Gen-Z as the labor pool shrinks in developed nations. Business owners should view this from the perspective of a rightsizing opportunity: jobs ‘that a robot can do’ will be replaced by a robot soon enough, so eliminate them to avoid 'resenteeism' among the ranks.