2023 was a discouraging year for worldwide medtech M&A. According to McKinsey, in the life sciences sector, there were 745 transactions in 2023. Ninety-one percent had a value below $1 billion, and 54% fell below $100 million. Biotech and pharma deals were in the majority of deal volume—61% and 23%, respectively.

Expect the pace of medtech innovation in 2024 to meet or exceed the outstanding bump we saw in 2023. And expect price strategies for these new technologies to keep medtech marketing teams on their toes.

Organizational culture is critical for successful innovative growth and the acquisition of new and adjacent technologies. Medtech companies with robust innovation cultures generate even more value by embracing the latest technologies, such as generative AI.

For medtech, resilience over the long term includes expansion through M&A and the bravery to make bold moves to pursue unknown alliances that have a high probability to result in  profitable growth.

According to McKinsey, for a CEO to beat the odds, there are 18 practices divided into six key areas of the job.

You’ve developed a great device. Now you need to get it to market, attract an acquirer, and get through negotiations.

You aren’t done yet.

By their own estimates, SRS Acquiom has partnered with buyers and sellers involved with approximately 10% of all US M&A transactions since 2008. Using data collected since then, they estimate they have been involved with 113 Medical Device deals (80 with earnouts and 33 without earnouts) and 107 Diagnostics/Research deals (52 with earnouts and 55 without).

In a hospital administrator survey (n=50) 3Q23 year over year growth was 3% for outpatient and the emergency department, 1.6% for inpatient and 2.1% for ASCs.

The ninth year of the Women in the Workplace report, (n=27,000) conducted in partnership by McKinsey and LeanIn.Org, is the largest study of executive women across corporate America and Canada. 

So many medtech manufacturers are building digital and hardware ecosystems that bring extra value to customers, increase switching barriers, provide competitive advantage and differentiate from competitors.

One example area of focus is in the race between GE and Siemens to use AI-powered imaging.

What a meeting! The Bio BootCamp was attended by other former faculty and there were some very animated discussions about funding and what venture capital and medtech angels were looking for in investments. I can't remember who it was that said that “Medtech investors are pursuing statistical outliers”, but it was notable enough that I used it for the title of this article.