Understanding market trends is key in the fast-moving medical technology field. We turned to our CEO, Attila Meretei, for an in-depth conversation on this complex subject and how our company is navigating these trends.
What key market trends do you see shaping the future of technology, and how is MedRes aligning with these trends?
The two trends that we are betting on are less invasive surgeries and smarter medical devices, driving cost down while adding scalability in the health care system. This means that we need to round out the traditional Medres competencies in surgery with capabilities in designing and making devices for catheter- and scope-based interventions, as well as investing in the software aspects of our devices, for sensing, analytics and decision support.
What challenges and opportunities do you foresee in global markets for MedRes?
We operate in a very competitive, highly regulated, technically challenging field. It is expensive to develop the type of devices we tend to work on. Our clients need to be able to raise the funds into their companies to pay for the effort that is needed – usually by sizeable teams, over months and years – to deliver a solution into the hospital and to patients. The current economic climate is harsh for fundraising for early-stage medical device development efforts. The opportunity for us is that we are generally cost competitive due to our location in Hungary. Longer term, these leaner times train us to be frugal and cost effective even in years of milk and honey.
Can you discuss any strategic partnerships that have been pivotal for MedRes’s market position?
We have been fortunate to work on major, successful product development efforts for the past two decades, with some of the legends of our industry. Csaba Truckai is one of them, whose projects and companies were the training grounds for MedRes engineering. Tom Duerig, Dieter Stoeckel, Tom Sos and Frank Fischer are some of the others who help us shape the current company. There are many more, some who helped form our industry, and some who are charting the future of medical device engineering.
How does MedRes leverage emerging technologies to stay competitive?
We have built a significant sourcing operation that helps our R&D and manufacturing operations to optimize our technology choices for performance, cost, and supply security. We source from the US, EU and Asia. We keep tabs on where state of the art is, we buy it, test it, and use it – if it makes a clinical difference and delivers bang-for-the-buck.
How do you see MedRes’ market positioning evolving in the next five years?
We are steadily growing. We are small, under the radar of the bigger medtech companies, but that will likely change in the next 2-3 years.