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Medtech takes pride of place as one of the most exciting and innovative areas in the life sciences. While medical technology comes in countless different shapes and forms, it’s all working towards a common goal: The betterment of society’s health.
As the population ages, the COVID tailwind persists, and mounting pressure on healthcare services start to take their toll, the need for new and improved medtech solutions grows.
Where can medtech fit in? And what kind of role will the life sciences have in the race to meet these increasing demands? As detailed in the UK government’s 2021 Life Sciences Vision report, recent advances in the life sciences have improved the length and quality of life on a global scale. A great deal has changed in the two years since that report, including the needs of the people.
Moving Away from Traditional Healthcare Models
Advancements in medtech has made a shift from facility to in-home healthcare (without sacrificing quality) easier than ever before. Take SugarIQ, IMB’s collaborative project with Medtronic, a diabetes management app that can make real-time predictions and provide actionable insights.
There’s also Proteus, the brand responsible for the world’s first FDA-approved ingestible digital sensor, a patient-centric device designed to make the remote monitoring of drug compliance seamless. The project ultimately fell through when Proteus filed for bankruptcy in 2020, but it stands as a lesson for today’s medtech startups, one of which being the extraordinary value of sourcing and retaining top talent.
These projects (and many others like them) represent the dawn of a new era in at-home medicine, and, potentially, an industry-defining move away from traditional facility-based models.
Like most areas that rest at the precipice of innovation, the regulations, methodologies and infrastructures take a while to catch up with the technology. The fate of Proteus is, in many ways, a prime example.
Relieving the Pressure
Healthcare systems remain under constant high pressure, be it the NHS or the U.S. healthcare infrastructure, we’ve seen an increase in waiting times, a lack of beds, woeful understaffing, and poor access to GPs across the board. Medtech could serve as a way to ease some of those pressures, provided there’s an increase in take up.
Virtual appointments have been around for a while now, but medtech’s potential stretches far beyond the diagnosis stage, acting as a real-time, real-world personal assistant to patients everywhere. As both investment and patient confidence in medtech increases, the widespread adoption of alternative tech looks set to continually change the healthcare world forever.
The Call for STEM Candidates
Behind every great innovation is an even greater team of individuals. Advancements in the medtech space have given rise to a greater need for increasingly versatile STEM candidates. On the other side of the coin, medtech represents an opportunity to overcome some of the traditional challenges attributed to recruitment, particularly the training and upskilling involved with retaining a capable, progressive workforce.
Here at BioTalent, we’ve worked closely with many of the world’s medtech companies, from multi-nationals to brand-new startups with big ambitions, and we’ve been able to deliver the talent that fits their unique needs.
Whether you’re looking to build a team from the ground up, or you’re in the market for a new career of your own, our diversity-led hiring methodology ensures that we always put people first when it comes to life sciences recruitment. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, reach out to the team at BioTalent today, we’re here to support you.