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As originally asked by Ken Dropiewski.

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Lee Balaklaw
President, Schooley Mitchell of Louisa
Technology is going to be very important as a source for significant profits. However the study of genetics, and its spin offs, yielding the elimination of disease will trump everything else in terms of profitability over time. The manipulation of genetic codes is going to allow mankind to alter chemistry and biochemistry in ways not previously conceived of with significant benefits and large profits. This will be long term profit source in my opinion.

RAMON DE LA FUENTE
Business Developer
All will have a bright future, but all must change a lot the way to approach and the way to work. In all these markets we are waiting for a great new technologies and a brilliant novelties.
In my opinion the small markets are much more attractive and depending the country and the market distribution(private/public) could be great differences. The medical business has a great future but we must be ready to have much more agility to change and adapt our companies and our teams to the market.

Burrell (Bo) Clawson
I research patents & design products to get a patented competitive position: Over 30 patents.
The original question was “what business segment of medical has the brightest future and why – Med device, Biotech, Healthcare IT?”

Perhaps it is “All of the above.”

Maybe we need to consider where the individual’s skills are.

I appreciate the rise of IT in healthcare & it is important. But, I know there will be a limited number of winners as the big companies buy up merge and standardize offering for each market segment. If you are in a Fortune 500 company then you can be a part of these mega-system IT projects.

For the rest of us in small operations, we need to find the niche opportunity that lets us get a viable markedly better product we build up and then ultimately sell to a Baxter. That sort of thing has worked for me.

Brahadeesh Chandrasekaran
Thought Leader | Medical Devices | Healthcare | Competitive Strategy | Strategic Insights Provider
If we are talking about the future potential then I strongly believe its going to be healthcare IT and diagnostics. Hospitals are under pressure to reduce their expenditures, so early diagnosis and prevention strategies are coming into act. Healthcare IT will play a key role in this area. While companies are coming with diagnostics supports in patient-specific medical management plans. So I expect these two areas to grow much higher than med device. Biotech again is a dark horse which can provide personalised medicine/treatment.

Derek White
Innovative Manager in Strategy, Operations, Purchasing, Project Management, International MBA, MSc in Innovation.
I tend to agree with Rob P. The combination of more advanced and affordable consumer devices, biotech (home diagnostics) and online expertise, patient-specific data and monitoring, will all bring healthcare home which will also address the cost pressure of an ageing demographic.

Burrell (Bo) Clawson
I research patents & design products to get a patented competitive position: Over 30 patents.
The brightest future is where your expertise lies that you can use to make transformative improvements in efficiency, reduced costs & improved quality of care.

All else is journalistic activity to keep the editor/publisher happy.

Don Rosenkoetter
Managing Director at The Co-Investment Partnership, LLC, Partner, Newport Board Group
Great thought provoking topic. My take, based upon the developments (scientific and political) of the last decade is that:

– there is an ongoing convergence and interchangeability of treatment and diagnostic modalities . . . electro-stimulation to treat what was the provenance of drug or surgical solutions, nanotechnologies enabling targeted drug therapies, combinations (such as the drug eluting stent, intrathecal drug pumps), IT and bioinformatics enabling the advances in diagnosis,modeling, screening, discovery, and targeted therapeutics

– as cost factors become ever greater factors in determining treatment standards of care, the need for lower cost / higher success rate solutions expands. This manifests itself in many ways.
– Companies face greater pricing pressure which minimizes the ability to assume risk.
– The confusion and cost of registration is escalating while the probability of success is not
– Development efforts cannot sustain the dramatic failures that have occurred (esp drugs) since losses cannot be factored into pricing and small incremental therapeutic benefits cannot justify a materially higher price (that helps to recapture cost of failures) . . as the only measure will be $ benefit versus current standards and QALYs.
– Bold advances, by their definition, typically entail greater risk and therefore are less encouraged . . thereby constraining the ability to develop better / faster / cheaper treatment paradigms. . . Catch-22

So my belief is that while great cases can be made for devices, biotech and diagnostics as having the highest potential, it is IT advances enable better / faster / cheaper / lower risk solutions and evolutionary convergences to emerge.

Rooney Hu
Key Accout Manager at Snibe Co.,Ltd.
hi, all! I prefer to support IVD products.

Javier Miguel Cabrera Contreras
It is possible to prevent osteoarthritis in large joints. Just like dentists do with, caries avoiding tooth destruction
In my opinion we should treat osteoarthritis of the hip as soon as diagnosed, using hip arthroscopy for repairing soft tissues, reshaping and resurfacing the articular cartilage with bio materials, stem cells etc, in order to prevent joint destruction and the need of Total Hip Prosthesis Surgery, witch is very expensive, has so many health complications and their manufacture has an impact in the environment polluting the soil when patients are buried with them.
We should treat osteoarthritis in the hip as dentists do with a decayed tooth avoiding its removal.
See: www.biototalhip.com

Subhas Mewar
Owner at R S MEDITECH
All three mentioned by you are having tremendous market potential. But it depend on what extra you have to offer than you competitor.