MPO reached out to members of industry to address the following question:

What do you expect will be one significant change within medtech development and/or manufacturing as a result of the pandemic?

In response, Christian Herrild, director of growth strategies at Teel Plastics, said:

I think a major need highlighted by the pandemic is the need for better sample collection and diagnostic testing. We have great technologies for blood testing and were making improvements in hospital settings with lab-on-a-chip and similar technologies, but we did not have a great base for doing widespread population testing for illnesses or sample collection in a non-hospital setting. There will be a lot of investment in sample collection devices and technology for specimen preservation to ensure we are better prepared for future disease outbreaks. I think swabs, tubes, vials, reagents, and test media will all be the subject of significant investment and development over the next few years. We may see a future where healthcare workers are routinely being screened for a panel of diseases, especially if they are going to work with a vulnerable patient population. I also think the push for expanded testing will extend into other areas like environmental testing in buildings and disease testing in the food supply chain. The power and promise of widescale testing is now apparent. The technology needed to support that will come next.

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