A Review of 5 Hot Medtech Segments (Part 2)

Medtech is on fire with new types of medical devices. Affordability, increasing needs from an aging world, and almost unlimited access to the internet in developed parts of the world are the drivers of change. COVID-19 is partly responsible, but if medtech wasn’t ready, we would not have seen these massive changes.

In Part 2 of this series, we will examine the second five of 10 of the hottest medical technologies for 2021: tricorders (Dr McCoy!), healthcare digital assistants, smart pacemakers, lab-on-a-chip, and more fully functional wearables.

Why This Is Important
In a 2018 survey, 27 percent of physicians reported they were “very likely” to adopt telemedicine.¹ This was, of course, prior to COVID. Approximately 80 percent of U.S. physicians reported utilizing telemedicine in 2020.² The younger the physician, the more likely they reported using new technology than older physicians.

Tricorders
Hello Trekkie fans! Since the 1960s, tricorders have been the medtech vision of how future physicians would treat patients. Star Trek’s creator, Gene Roddenberry, saw tricorders as handheld medical devices that could quickly and accurately measure vital signs and diagnostics.

Basil Leaf Technologies has created a real tricorder, known as DxtER.³ DxtER is a device for patients to use for diagnosis and monitoring at home. The device is comprised of a state-of-the-art diagnostic instrument formulated from patient data and decades of knowledge developed in clinical emergency medicine. It contains algorithms for diagnosing 34 health conditions, such as diabetes, Afib, CPOD, UTI, sleep apnea, pertussis leukocytosis, stroke, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. No medical training is required. DxtER is boldly going where no man has gone before.

This is important to support the hospital-to-home movement. According to a recent report, 133 million patients in the U.S. suffer from a chronic illness like heart disease, cancer, hypertension, diabetes, stroke, mental illness, or other conditions. The economic impact of chronic disease in the U.S. is estimated to cost $3.8 trillion annually. The medical tricorder market is forecasted at a CAGR of 5.4 percent from 2021-2027 to reach $4.1 billion by 2027.⁴

Healthcare’s Digital Assistants
Siri and Alexa have changed the way consumers interface with technology. Soon, digital assistants will be taking on a similar role in healthcare. A healthcare digital assistant can aid a patient by answering questions and carrying out basic tasks (e.g., Siri, stay on hold with my doctor’s office to make an appointment). A healthcare digital assistant can speak multiple languages and be operated via voice or text messages. It can manage patient inputs and will be able to remember and handle data for self-learning. Natural language processing (NLP) and ambient listening are used in the capture, analysis, and utilization of patient health data.

For healthcare providers, electronic health record (EHR) software designers Cerner and Epic began adding voice-enabled virtual assistants on their EHR systems in 2020. Another startup, Saykara, has launched a new AI-based voice assistant that can hear and understand a clinician conversation with a patient. No prompts with voice commands are required.

Smart Pacemakers
The implantable pacemaker is a critical piece of medical technology. Pacemakers stop or correct life-threatening forms of heart arrhythmia. Over 1 million cardiac pacemakers were implanted every year globally (pre-COVID), with approximately 200,000 implanted in the U.S.⁵ Reliable remote monitoring of pacemakers is a critical part of their performance, but relies on a complicated patient user interface.

In 2021, expect pacemakers to get smarter. Bluetooth technology will link with smartphone-based mobile apps to help patients better communicate data for monitoring. (On a personal note, my father hated this process for his pacemaker and complained about it regularly.) Now, remote monitoring will improve patient outcomes by allowing patients to have a more seamless monitoring experience. Further, according to the Cleveland Clinic, allowing patients with implanted pacemakers to use a smart phone app for remote monitoring resulted in a significantly higher rate of data transmission success compared with traditional landline and automatic bedside monitoring technologies. To provide a sense of the numbers, over a period of one year, the BlueSync cohort enrolled 245 patients for a total of 953 scheduled transmissions. Scheduled transmissions that were successfully completed were 902, showing a success rate of 94.6 percent (Table 1).⁶

Lab-on-a-Chip
Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos had it all wrong. It takes too long to get samples to (and through) the lab, so why not bring the lab to the samples? Researchers at Stanford University recently developed the “lab-on-a-chip” with CRISPR enzyme Cas12.⁷ The size of a thin, 1.5 x 1.5 inch card, the diagnostic device is fabricated from a network of tiny channels that can deliver a COVID test result in under 30 minutes.

The diagnostic test could be adapted to detect other infections by configuring the CRISPR enzyme for a different biomarker. The “lab-on-a-chip” will provide testing safely, quickly, cost-effectively, and with greater efficiency.

Wearables
A “What’s Hot” article focused on medtech would be incomplete if it didn’t include the ever-increasing ubiquity of wearables. Fitbit was the market mover in consumer wearables, shipping an estimated 9.9 million units in 2019, up from 8.4 million in 2018 (Table 2).⁸ The next trend in wearables for medtech, however, is focused on patients. Wearable continuous glucose monitors will become the new normal for patients with diabetes. For example, Insulet—a leader in diabetes management—stated FDA clearance is imminent and it expects Omnipod 5 to launch this year.⁹

I have long admired Shacey Petrovic, the CEO of Insulet. She began with Insulet in February 2015 as chief commercial officer, and was promoted to president and chief operating officer in October 2016.10 Petrovic was promoted to chief executive officer of Insulet on Jan. 1, 2019. In six short years, she has changed the trajectory of Insulet and made it a true player in the big business of diabetes care.

Insulet’s latest iteration is the Omnipod 5, and it delivers several unmet needs to the market. According to Petrovic, Omnipod 5 will be the “first tubeless, wearable, automated insulin delivery system.”¹⁰ It will diagnose cases of hyperglycemia in real time. Further, patients have a choice between a dedicated handheld controller or the ability to control the system through a secure app on their smartphone. A smartphone app translates to one less item for patients with diabetes to have to carry. Wearable CGMs track the patient’s glucose levels in real time, allowing them to read the effect of diet and exercise and modify their lifestyles accordingly.

The Medi-Vantage Perspective
For medtech companies in very competitive markets (e.g., those supplying patients with diabetes technologies), identifying, understanding, and acting on unmet needs is paramount to leapfrogging the competition, taking the lead, and maintaining it. 

References

1. bit.ly/mpo211001
2. bit.ly/mpo211002
3. bit.ly/mpo211103
4. bit.ly/mpo211104
5. bit.ly/mpo211105
6. bit.ly/mpo211106
7. bit.ly/mpo211107
8. bit.ly/mpo211108
9. bit.ly/mpo211109
10. bit.ly/mpo211110

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Maria Shepherd has more than 20 years of leadership experience in medical device/life-science marketing in small startups and top-tier companies. After her industry career, including her role as vice president of marketing for Oridion Medical, director of marketing for Philips Medical, and senior management roles at Boston Scientific Corp., she founded Medi-Vantage. Medi-Vantage provides marketing and business strategy and innovation research for the medical device industry. Shepherd has taught marketing and product development courses, speaks regularly at medtech conferences, and can be reached at [email protected]. Visit her website at www.medi-vantage.com.