The medical technology sector applies the knowledge and experience of the health sector to medication, medical equipment, vaccines, medical practice and organizational systems. In 2017, the digital health segment had the largest number of companies at 491. This was followed by the assistive technology segment at 347 companies. The segment with the smallest number of companies was implant devices, at 21 companies.
Breakdown of the MedTech sector
Although the single use technology segment had the fourth highest amount of companies in 2017, it had the
highest turnover of the major segments in the medical technology sector. At 1.98 billion British pounds, it was higher than in vitro diagnostic technologies and orthopedic devices with turnovers of 1.72 billion and 1.5 billion British pounds respectively. The digital health segment had an employment of over ten thousand in this year, the highest of
any medical technology segment.
Use of digital health in the UK
As of 2018, only eleven percent of Britons were currently using a
connected health device or tool to manage their health, indicating there is still a vast space for the market to expand into. The most popular health technology that
consumers in England would be most likely to use would be a device that could be used at home to test blood for a variety of indicators. Almost two-thirds of those surveyed indicated they would be likely to use this device.