Medical Channel's Top 10 of 2013

Back in February, electronics manufacturing services company Jabil announced the acquisition of Nypro, a major player in medical molding. The $665-million acquisition was seen as an aggressive move by Jabil to grow its presence in the plastics and medical arenas, wrote Medical Channel Editor Doug Smock at the time.

While reports of a growing onshoring trend captured imaginations in 2013, Covidien made news in September when it filed a notice of restructuring with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing mentioned outsourcing and consolidation as means to achieving cost efficiencies. The Dublin-based medical device manufacturer, which was spun out of Tyco in 2007, said it was targeting annual savings of $250 to $300 million.

The sad saga of Mexico's drug war has been making headlines all year long, but over on the Medical Channel we had some more uplifting news about our neighbor to the south. In "Mexico on the move as a medical device player," we reported that production of medical devices is expected to grow by 74% from 2011 to 2020. The overall annual growth rate will outpace other NAFTA countries as well as Europe's medtech powerhouse Germany. Many readers were surprised to learn that Mexico is the 11th largest medical device exporter in the world.

On the materials front, there was considerable reader interest in French company Arkema requiring customers to use special, higher priced grades of its plastics for medical applications. This was seen as part of a larger industry trend that did not always seem justified beyond the obvious profit motive. Wrote Smock: "The Arkema MED grades have the same chemistry as grades sold for nonmedical uses."

In May, PlasticsToday reported on the results of a study sponsored by Ethicon, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, on the levels of residual bisphenol A (BPA) in devices molded from medical-grade polycarbonate. It showed that the levels present were far below anything that what would represent a human health threat. The findings interested a substantial number of readers; the public at large, however, continued to board the ban-BPA bandwagon en masse.

The medical device tax—a 2.3% excise tax levied on most medical devices that is a provision of the Affordable Care Act—has been the subject of heated debate within industry. It went into effect on January 1, 2013, surviving the fiscal cliff battle, wrote Smock, but industry was not conceding the war. He quoted Stephen Ubl, president and CEO of industry organization Advamed, who said, "the effort to repeal the medical device tax will continue." It did, indeed, and the effort may have ultimately succeeded. The budget deal that sailed through the House of Representatives on Dec. 12 includes language that would repeal the tax.

The disruptive potential of 3D printing on an industrial scale has been covered extensively by PlasticsToday, but we also highlighted some of the medical breakthroughs that it has enabled. Members of the University of Michigan faculty successfully bioprinted a tracheal stent that saved a baby's life. Meanwhile, researchers at Princeton University integrated silver nano particles and tissue to produce a 3D-printed ear using off-the-shelf 3D printing equipment. It may sound like science fiction, but this actually happened in 2013.

A very different breakthrough was profiled in, "Unique plastics design enables life-saving deliveries in Africa." The article tells the story of a British aid worker in sub-Saharan Africa who had the idea of using the Coca-Cola distribution network to get life-saving medicine to children. "The idea that Coca-Cola gets everywhere but essential medicines don't and that these medicines could hitch a ride in Coca-Cola crates is very powerful," said the aid worker. The article describes in some detail the challenges of designing appropriate medical packaging and dealing with the intricacies of the distribution chain in African countries.

At the end of 2012, Smock itemized five reasons why medical plastics will change in 2013, which became one of the most-read stories of the year. He cited cost containment, environmental pressure, a shift to home care, and increased hospital consolidation as challenges and opportunities for the plastics sector. Exercise your 20/20 hindsight and see how much he got right by revisiting the article.

That was the year that was on the Medical Channel. What does 2014 hold in store? Don't touch that dial--I will be testing my predictive powers in a piece that will be published on PlasticsToday some time before the end of 2013.

— Norbert Sparrow