Showcasing medical technology

Driven by the gradually aging population, increasing health consciousness and an unbroken chain of innovations, the global market for medical products and medical technology has retained its status as a growth market. The experts agree in their forecasts and are predicting a solid annual growth of ten per cent until 2015. In that period, the total market volume is expected to increase from the current approximate €190 billion to about €320 billion.
    
The market is, however, not only growing, it is also characterised by perceptible changes in relation to demand. While cutbacks to the healthcare budgets in Western Europe and the USA - traditionally the main markets for medical products - have left their mark on the suppliers’ balance sheets, the Asian market is proving ever more lucrative. There is growth potential here as a result of an enormous backlog demand. Whether in China, India, Thailand or the Middle East – people can increasingly afford to spend more for their health.   

The growth of Asia
In accordance with this prognosis, leading trade associations and investment companies expect the share of the global market held by the Asia-Pacific area to increase to 25 per cent, almost equal to that of the Western European market; it will then have a volume of approximately €84 billion.
    
As the main barometer of the global market, MEDICA in Düsseldorf, the world’s largest medical trade fair, has already predicted this trend as the result of an enormous backlog demand in Asia. For years, large groups of visitors have been coming from Asian countries. Out of the 137,000 visitors at MEDICA 2007, about 14,400 trade fair visitors traveled from Asia.  
    
Therefore, in spite of restrictive health policy measures in Western Europe and the USA, for many years the unchallenged leaders of the global market, the medical market is still growing and MEDICA, as the main event of the entire sector, is still the pivot of supply and demand. Every year in November, companies from the medical industry, whether large concerns, innovative niche suppliers or ambitious start-up companies, bring to Düsseldorf their latest ideas and developments for better patient care – everything from complex medical technology systems to practical disposable consumer items.
    
Judging by the application process for MEDICA 2008, the 40th World Forum for Medicine with Congress (19 to 22 November), we can expect another top turn out with more than 4,200 exhibitors from around 60 countries.
    
Together with the parallel event COMPAMED, the leading international trade fair for the suppliers market in medical manufacturing (exhibition halls 8a and 8b, 19 to 22 November 2008), MEDICA occupies all 19 halls of the Düsseldorf exhibition centre. The trade fair covers the entire field of ambulant and stationary health care, which will be clearly divided into market segments through the appropriate allocation of floor space. Key topics include electro-medicine/medical technology, laboratory technology/diagnostics, physiotherapy/orthopedic technology, medical products (commodities and consumable items), information and communication technology, medical equipment, spatial design and building technology.

Special features
In addition to everything the exhibitors have to offer, the attractive features that have made MEDICA such a success include theme parks and forums like MEDICA MEDIA (telemedicine/medical IT), MEDICA VISION (innovation forum for the research institutes and universities) and the physiotherapy forum. In addition, there is the German-language MEDICA Congress, which last time had 10,000 participants, and the German Hospital Conference (Deutscher Krankenhaustag), the main event of the year for the decision-making levels of hospital management.
    
With the motto ‘From Research to Practice’, the MEDICA congress includes approximately 200 certified seminars and courses and is thereby Germany’s largest interdisciplinary advanced training forum.
    
The congress lectures range from prevention to rehabilitation, from homeopathic methods to high-tech medicine, from modern diagnostics to targeted therapies.
    
The organiser of the MEDICA Congress, the MEDICA Deutsche Gesellschaft für Interdisziplinäre Medizin e.V., lays particular stress on its interdisciplinary point of view. The interdisciplinary approach to complex medical problems, which is especially important in an aging society, is given the highest priority.

For more information
All information regarding the individual components of the MEDICA event, the participating exhibitors and their products can be viewed on the bilingual Internet portal at http://www.medica.de.