The last month brought a bit of a skid for the medtech industry and after a slight rebound last week, the downward trend has returned.
A strong start to 2021 came to an end in late February and carried over into March, with MassDevice‘s MedTech 100 index hitting its lowest point on March 8 (102.16). It had only notched an all-time best of 110.96 on Feb. 15, leading to a fall at a level not seen since October.
While February’s highs have not yet been returned to, the industry showed signs of bouncing back last week (March 12) by finishing at 104.62.
Despite ticking up as high as 105.71 on Monday, March 15, the index regressed to the mark set the week prior, then dipped even further to end the week, coming in at 104.05 on March 19, marking a -0.5% drop week-over-week.
However, the industry remains in a better spot than it was at this time a year ago, as the index is now 12.7% up on the pre-COVID-19 pandemic high of 92.32 set on Feb. 19, 2020.
Nearly one year ago, on March 23, 2020, as the pandemic took hold, the industry sat at 62.13 points on the index. Since then, medtech is up 67.5%.
The overall markets experienced similar weeks compared to the medtech industry, with the S&P 500 Index falling -0.8% and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dipping -0.5%.
The industry continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects. Here are some of the major highlights from the past week:
- Medtronic: 3 things investors might be overlooking
- Pfizer exec reportedly says COVID-19 vaccine pricing is a ‘signficant opportunity’ post-pandemic
- Biden to put $12B toward COVID testing
- Roche to acquire GenMark Diagnostics for $1.8B
- Bigfoot Biomedical raises $57M to support its diabetes management tech
- Viz.ai raises $71 million Series C, touts positive data for stroke care outcomes