In 2014, the Medical Devices Group swelled past a quarter-million members, we hosted the second annual 10x Medical Device Conference, and many of you met in person, talked here, and made valuable business connections.

Here are the most popular discussions in 2014, ranked by number of comments.

Dr. Bob: “FDA, You Failed Me” http://bit.ly/dr-bob

Meeting on Ebola management – White House and USAID http://bit.ly/WH-ebola

Is Apple going to eat medical device companies’ lunch? http://bit.ly/An-Apple-a-Day

Get the hell out of my office http://bit.ly/Hell-No

Let’s be honest: Nobody reads user’s guides at http://bit.ly/readers-guides

Will Google’s Contact Lens for diabetics make it to market? http://bit.ly/something-in-my-eye

Is Cancer Too Profitable to Cure? http://bit.ly/cancer-profit

Hacking Medical Devices http://bit.ly/hacking-medical-devices

How are toothpaste and mouthwash Medical Devices? at http://bit.ly/toothpaste-and-mouthwash

The Wearable Devices Tipping Point? http://bit.ly/wearable-tip

Thank you to everyone who shared with the group. We have a real community here and I am grateful for you.

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QUESTION for today’s discussion:

What are your 2015 predictions for the medical device industry?

Will business be up, flat, or down?

Will the medical device tax be repealed?

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SUPER BOWL WINNER?

Who will win the Super Bowl?

The first group member who guesses the correct teams and score will receive one free admission to the 10x Medical Device Conference.

Try your luck at http://medgroup.biz/superbowl

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ASIA PACIFIC

If you do business in the Asia Pacific, consider the March 5-6 Asia-Pacific Summit for Medical Devices (in San Diego) at http://AsiaPacificDeviceSummit.com

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Make it a great year.

Joe Hage
Medical Devices Group Leader

P.S. If you plan to use crowdfunding to raise money for your medical device in Q1’15, email me at link at JHage@MedicalDevicesGroup.net. I may feature you in an upcoming announcement.

Richard Brown
Consultant at XCellCure, LLC
great 10x conf good leads good food joe you were great

Robert Christensen
Medical Consultant
Yes, Basit, I can really feel for the need in your country and your desire to serve your fellow man. Some 65 years ago as a young surgeon I was scrambling to find ways to bring forth ways to make a jaw for a 17 month old where I would be removing a jaw. Maybe it would be a 65 year old. It was always looking for some new way. I just had to satisfy myself and patient,family and any surgical staff concerned.

I don’t remember failing in that effort, even though I would many times make them in my garage or whatever. Your people won’t need to go back that far….but I hope you are able to bring forth and get common sense involved, not just overloaded bureaucracy and endless rules by many who never did anything innovative or constructiveI

Today, I would reduce budget by 15% the first year, in America, and 5% per year for the next three years.

Blessings my friend.

Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
Heartbreaking to read, Basit. Thank you for doing what you can to help others.

Joe Hage
🔥 Find me at MedicalDevicesGroup.net 🔥
Well done, Paul. We’ll check this space in a year and see how you did! 🙂

Paul M. Stein
Chief Scientist, Inventor, and Entrepreneur – Dedicated to the Treatment of Critical Unmet Medical Needs
PREDICTIONS:

On the raw face of it, because of the Democratic population in the U.S. Senate, any votes on repealing the medical device excise tax will not survive President Obama’s veto. However, if there are savings found elsewhere to balance out the loss of revenue from the tax that do not cross the President’s important issues, then a veto might not occur. However, based on the past savings options placed on the table by the Republicans, that won’t happen, and we are going to see veto after veto.

We will see an increasing flurry of medical device company IPO’s placed to raise funds as the venture capitalists continue to ignore our industry.

Brand new startups will continue to massively struggle to raise funds past the friends-and-family round unless the device is a blockbuster with huge moneymaking potential. Anything me-too or designed to make anyone’s life just a little easier or better beyond current standard-of-care, for patient or healthcare worker, will have little chance. (Sorry, but for the past few years no one has had the stomach to pay for these sort of things, and I just can’t see this year being any different. Even really good ideas are going nowhere fast.)

As the mega-mergers consolidate, watch for new large rounds of layoffs. (And please don’t blame the medical device excise tax again for what everyone knows naturally happens.) Layoffs will still continue at many other companies as they try to maintain ever higher profitability in light of no new products and the difficulty in penetrating those pesky emerging markets as well as to cover rising costs. (Again, please don’t blame the tax for years of exceedingly poor corporate strategy, many of them pre-tax, that got them into this situation.)