Even those of us who touch the medical device industry on an almost daily basis often find ourselves in awe of how vast, economically robust and life-affecting it is. Thousands of products are categorized as medical devices, and they’ve influenced (and saved) untold numbers of people around the world. Few industries have as much transformative power.
Health technology, which encompasses medical devices, was the most profitable industry in 2015, Forbes reports. By 2017, the medical device industry is expected to grow in size to $155 billion, according to the International Trade Administration. Currently, the U.S. accounts for 43 percent of the global medical device market, and we exported $44 billion worth of medical devices in 2015.
Staggering numbers are far from the only thing impressive about the medical device industry. The medical device industry is singularly adept at innovating new technologies that have applications outside the industry. What’s more, device developers and researchers excel at incorporating into health-care applications leading-edge technologies that originated outside the industry. Three-dimensional printing is an excellent example of innovation that began elsewhere, only to find a flourishing home in the medical device industry.
Small size, big impact
What’s the next big thing in medical devices? It’s actually something quite small: micromolding.
If you’ve ever seen an artist carving a grain of sand using precision instruments and a magnifying glass, you have a sense of the wonder that is micromolding. As the name implies, micromolding is a molding process that creates very small devices and device parts. The process has been around for decades and in use in multiple industries, including health technology.
In the medical device industry, researchers are pushing micromolding to smaller and more precise feats.
When it comes to improving treatment outcomes and patient recovery times, smaller can be much better. A surgical tool that requires an incision of just centimeters in size to do the job can mean a far less invasive surgery — reducing infection risks and allowing patients to heal faster and with less pain. Micro-sized drug-delivery systems can help deliver medication to a precise location in the body, while reducing its impact on surrounding tissues.
Micromolding can also enhance the manufacturing process. A smaller device or part may require fewer assembly steps (reducing the opportunity for errors to occur), and less material to create (trimming material costs). Of course, micromolding wouldn’t be possible without the availability of bioabsorbable and biocompatible polymers. The utility and versatility of these polymers not only allows medical device manufacturers to create devices and parts smaller than a cubic centimeter, but also to achieve a high level of complexity and precision.
What’s in store for the future of medical devices? It looks like the industry will continue to grow — and shrink — as a driver of the global economy, while helping improve patient health around the world.