ARTICLE SUMMARY:
The CEO of the largest device trade association makes the case that the positive message of medtech as a unique industry driving US jobs and improved healthcare is getting through to leaders in the Trump administration. That messaging, he tells Market Pathway in an interview, is bearing fruit in policy and operational decisions, despite steep challenges remaining on tariffs and other areas.
The US federal government is operating in, to say the least, an unpredictable register. The Trump administration has slashed the size of the federal government, remade scientific and public health advisory panels, and is pursuing a global trade war, just to name a few of the jarring policy developments since January.
Medtech isn’t the prime target of any of these efforts, but as with all federal policymaking, the industry can be impacted from many directions. And when dictates are evolving and shifting on almost a daily basis, the challenge of monitoring and responding to what is coming out of Washington, DC, escalates. One of the people who is charged with leading that monitor-and-respond mission is Scott Whitaker, president and CEO of AdvaMed.
Whitaker says he recognizes the complications that all industries are facing right now. But in a recent interview with Market Pathways (for the Market Pathways Podcast) he says he’s optimistic about the overall direction of US policymaking for medtech innovation. He explains that AdvaMed is prioritizing efforts, both publicly and face-to-face with government officials, to spell out what makes medtech distinct from other sectors, such as the pharmaceutical industry, that are more clearly in the crosshairs of the administration and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Department of Health and Human Services.
“Almost every meeting I go into, whether it's with the administration or with folks on the Hill, I lead with that story,” Whitaker notes in the interview with Market Pathways. “We're different. We're unique. We have a specific story to tell. I often say, if you go into a hospital, everything … in the hospital, other than the bricks and mortar and the people, is essentially medtech.”
AdvaMed is hammering home a message about how devices are manufactured, how they are priced, how they enter the healthcare system, and the very particular competitive environment that underlies medtech. “The uniqueness argument is important to us,” Whitaker says. “It helps us explain why certain policies matter more to us than perhaps they do others.”
In his estimation, the strategy has borne fruit, particularly within the arena of HHS policymaking.
