In a Truist survey of 49 US hospital administrators, managing approximately 572 hospitals (63,000 beds), roughly 8% of all US hospitals, one key takeaway was that capital equipment budgets and spending for the next twelve months has declined from the Truist 2Q22 survey, from a slight positive (+0.2%) to a low negative (-1.9%) in 3Q22.

Many say the lifeblood of Medtech Is M&A, so, how goes M&A in 2022?

To support that statement, one of the most well attended sessions at the 3rd annual MedExecWomen meeting was Making Acquisition Strategy Succeed: Perspectives From Each Side Of The Deal; a panel that offered unique perspectives from the acquirer and acquiree. From that panel we learned that a 100% earnout was rare (22%) but there were wise tips and techniques to increase that low percentage from the panelist.

I always like to take a read on the thoughts and opinions of leaders outside of our medtech industry, especially during a period of unrest like we’ve seen during the pandemic. There is much good information in The GLG CEO Survey 2022 report (n=471 CEOs) where CEOs shared their strategies and what they expect will happen next five years, especially about knowledge-based employees that can work from home independently as long as they have well-defined expectations.

I love doing hospital administrator research!

And, the Truist team has done a fine job of conducting their own hospital administrator research.

Where else can you get a sense of the economic trends in the US hospital ecosystem? In our research we recommend that almost every client (especially when we are doing due diligence research for mergers and acquisitions) add a segment of interviews for hospital administrators. We have our own special techniques to make sure we get the most qualified hospital administrators possible and have been successful in uncovering trends for our clients for the past 15 years.

Although the US medical device industry saw a decrease of ~30% in deal activity during May 2022, (as compared to the prior 12-month average), there was still much activity to report. According to the Globaldata Deals Database , in May 2022, 76 medical device industry deals worth $866.4m were declared in the US, as compared to the 12-month average of 112 deals.

This is not your average accelerator. The Mayo Clinic Platform_Accelerate has developed a 20-week course to help start-up health tech AI companies develop their go to market strategies.

This is not your average accelerator. The Mayo Clinic Platform_Accelerate has developed a 20-week course to help start-up health tech AI companies develop their go to market strategies.

I was concerned when I read that HeartFlow and a SPAC; Longview Acquisition Corporation, had called off merger plans that would have taken the noninvasive, personalized cardiac tests company public. To me, SPACs present significant upside to a private medtech company, an alternative path to IPOs and traditional M&A.

PwC has examined the power of trust. They have learned that that highly trusted corporations are more apt to have made net-zero pledges and to have attached the compensation of their CEO to nonfinancial results, such as workforce engagement scores and gender diversity.

I was pleased to be invited to moderate a panel at the MPO Summit in Utah this past August just before Labor Day. It was a date in between COVID surges in the early summer and late fall. The medical device community in the Utah area turned out, F2F, in full force. As one of our panelists said, drug delivery devices and their developers are the unsung heroes of the convergence of medical devices, digital health and pharmaceuticals.