While medtech’s performance still isn’t mirroring the beginning of 2021, the industry is showing signs of life with a small improvement last week.
The year’s strong start, during which MassDevice‘s MedTech 100 index notched an all-time best of 110.96 points (Feb. 15) came to an end later that month and carried over into March, with the index hitting its lowest recent point on March 8 (102.16), marking a fall at a level not seen since October.
Even after a slight rise earlier this month, the index struggled again two weeks ago with another small dip. However, after coming in at 104.05 on March 19, the index got a slight boost over the past week, finishing at 104.87 on March 26, representing a 0.8% rise.
Despite the up-and-down nature of the past couple of months, the index represents a much better situation for the industry compared to this time a year ago when the COVID-19 pandemic was in full swing. The index is up 13.6% from its pre-pandemic high of 92.32 (set on Feb. 19, 2020) and it’s risen 68.8% from the mid-pandemic low of 62.13 (March 23, 2020).
The overall markets experienced similar, if not slightly better, weeks compared to the medtech industry, with the S&P 500 Index rising 1.6% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ticking up 1.4%.
The industry continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects. Here are some of the major highlights from the past week:
- How big medtech fared during a year of COVID-19
- How 5G could affect medtech
- Boston Scientific settles host of state pelvic mesh lawsuits for nearly $189M
- SeaSpine to buy 7D Surgical for $110M
- Dexcom promotes Jereme Sylvain to CFO
- Second Sight’s merger with Pixium Vision may fall through
- BioCorp, Diabeloop partner on diabetes management tech development
- Investors sue Decision Diagnostics over COVID-19 test