Planning ahead for medical success

Gary Atkins, recently appointed to head Murata’s European business into the medical and healthcare market, feels that manufacturers cannot take a short-term view when developing these markets, and intends to make a serious commitment with a series of initiatives that take a long-term view of developing business from medical and healthcare customers.

The first step was to fix and align all its company policies for different product technologies, and that includes not just established products but also the new products that have come from its newly acquired companies over the last three to five years. The company now has products suitable for almost all medical applications. Using the combined product line-up it can service everything from low risk products right through to pacemaker and defibrillator technology.

In healthcare and medical Murata already has an established number of large global customers that continue to expand. But there is also a lot of focus on developing new customers, something we've never really done before. By revisiting these customers with a much broader technology offering Murata is now involved with many new and diverse applications. Again, that really fits for a lot of the new technologies the company has to offer.

What is already clear is that it's a very complex market; many large customers have a mixture of own production and EMS. Many new and developing customers have their own design capabilities. However, many also use specialist design houses and the ODM facilities of our EMS partners for this service, in addition to production.

The complexity of these medical and healthcare markets is not limited to the design and manufacturing approach, there are equally complex steps in getting a product into the market. Generally there are three phases in getting a new medical device to market. The electronic design phase is quite common, and is very similar with other industries. However, the next two phases are a bit more complex because of the various different regulatory bodies. In Europe we have the CE, in America the FDA, and of course in Asia they have other, similar specialist regulatory bodies. Depending on how complex and life critical the device is, some of those devices can take two to three years to get full approval.

Then of course the third step is the actual access to market. What suppliers need to fully appreciate is that in the medical world there's a relatively narrow access to market. If it's a new high-tech device that has been developed then initially there's only a very few surgeons, physicians and training hospitals that are prepared to try a new device. Then it has to be proven before they will communicate the success through medical journals, to other physicians before it starts to get widely used. This process can be quite difficult, complex and time consuming depending on the critical nature of the device.

For example, manufacturers of a device like a pacemaker will need to allow at least 18 months for regulatory approval. Then, in addition, additional time will be required for different physicians to try the new technology, fully test it and in some cases wait to get successful results back from patients that have used it.

Unfortunately, these critical tasks are all set against a backdrop of austerity measures that are currently affecting every corner of Europe. That is not only affecting how capital equipment is purchased, but also who is purchasing it. More hospitals are now looking closely at renting equipment, and that brings into play equipment rental companies that are more focused on the asset management of equipment, where it is, and its condition. We’ve seen an increased demand for RFID tracking of equipment for example as a direct result.

The business potential of the healthcare and medical equipment market has encouraged more dialogue, greater innovation and confidence in forecasts, but its fundamental characteristics dictate patience and commitment on a new level for many vendors. An appreciation of that will help ensure its success.