Delving into a Decade of Dominance

Only a wordsmith could be responsible for such a paradox: “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.” French critic, journalist and novelist Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr came up with the phrase in January 1849 for “Les Guêpes” (The Wasps), the monthly satirical review that immortalized his bitter wit. Translated literally, the phrase means “the more it changes, the more it’s the same thing,” but it’s perhaps best known by its bastardized English version, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
 
Karr likely never imagined the extent of posthumous fame his proverb would bring him. The English interpretation has been used countless times over the last 164 years to denote the invulnerability of reality to turbulent change, becoming a favorite adage among politicians, public speakers, journalists (Karr would be proud), bloggers and business executives. Perhaps nowhere is it more popular, though, than in the medtech world, where “disruptive” technological advancements are occurring at warp speed. Amid all the change, though, is the fundamental mission that has guided the industry since its inception—improving patient care. “We are not standing in the same river that we were standing in five years ago or even last year,” a medtech consultant/investment banker said at a conference earlier this year. “But our focus is still the same—helping people. That’s what our industry is all about.”
 
It’s also about revenue, profit and shareholder value—the nutrients of any successful industry. In that vein, medtech’s vision has seldom waivered, regardless of technological advancements, business environment or corporate composition. Indeed, the collective team that has fostered such life-saving innovation as cardiac stents, pill-sized robots, computed tomography angiography and minimally invasive surgery has undergone significant changes over the last decade but their overall appearance remains virtually the same. The big cats of yesteryear—Guidant Corp., Kodak Health Imaging and Dade Behring—now belong to their former rivals, nourishing the likes of Boston Scientific Corp., Onex Corporation and Siemens AG, respectively. Other heavyweights, meanwhile, have become bigger and stronger, cementing their status as industry leaders (Johnson & Johnson, GE Healthcare, Medtronic Inc., Abbott Laboratories, Baxter International Stryker Corp., St. Jude Medical Inc., among others). The aforementioned companies have been mainstays of Medical Product Outsourcing’s Top Companies report for the last 10 years (J&J has consistently led the pack, with GE Healthcare and Siemens following closely behind). The 30 device and diagnostic firms on our first list in June 2003 earned a collective total of $104.6 billion; by 2012, that sum had more than doubled to $241.6 billion, though some of that growth likely was due to inflation (see the accompanying chart). Most of the increase, however, was obtained through innovation and acquisition—a time-tested strategy that should continue to pay off for many years to come.
 
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Net sales of the top 30 medical device and diagnostics manufacturers in 2003 and adjusted for inflation.