Not surprisingly, the medical device market in Mexico has followed suit, and the results are evident when you look at the import data as far as medical equipment.

Imported Medical Equipment Value into Mexico in 2017

The medical device market in Mexico, while still far and away the largest in the region, has faced similar stagnation. Down from a high of over $6 billion in value for units imported in 2016, Mexico dropped a sharp 19 percent in 2017 to a value of $4.8 billion for units imported, according to recent forecasts by ShareScope, a service from Global Health Intelligence (GHI) that analyzes import data and uses it to analyze market size/share for medical equipment/device brands in Latin America.

Quantities of Imported Medical Equipment into Mexico in 2017

As far as the actual quantity of imports in the medical device and equipment market, Mexico’s numbers here are remarkably consistent with the value of its imports. Just as the value of imports dropped 19% in 2017, so did the quantity of imports, from 8.3 billion units in 2016 to 6.7 billion units in 2017, as per ShareScope. It’s an unfortunate trend, but Mexico’s large and demanding market for these items can’t stay down for long.

Growth Areas with Mexico’s Medical Device/Equipment Market in 2017

Despite Mexico having a forecasted drop of 19% in both value and quantities of medical equipment imported into the country, there are some modest areas of growth:

• Machines and appliances for testing metals, other machines, and parts: A forecast growth of 7% in value and 56% in quantities imported
• Gas meters: A forecast growth of 9% in value and a 3% growth in quantities imported
• Other breathing appliances and gas masks: A forecast growth of 10% in value

The Need for Deeper Data

Though it may seem counter-intuitive, the downturn in Mexico’s imports of medical devices and equipment makes the need for more detailed data stronger than ever. That’s because a contracting market makes competition more intense—medical device companies will struggle to maintain or increase market share against competitors trying to encroach.

How Your Company Can Stay Strong in the Mexican Market

Global Health Intelligence’s data resources can help you strengthen your market position in Mexico in a couple of key ways:

#1 ShareScope: With this service, we measure market share for different companies when it comes to specific types of products, allowing you to see at a glance how well your company is faring—or may not be—in the highly competitive Mexican medical devices market. Contact us to obtain these crucial data portraits of different market sectors.

#2 Competitive Intelligence: A tighter market means you need to know what your competition has up its sleeve…and our In-Scope can give you insight into what rivals are planning to do so you can counteract their moves with even better strategies.

#3 HospiScope: Import data is just part of the picture when it comes to the Mexican medical devices market. Subscribing to our hospital database will also let you see installed based equipment for different hospitals in Mexico so you can truly see what market conditions are like—and find new sales prospects quickly and efficiently.

#4 Custom Research: Import data lumps together products into broader categories, but you may just need to know what the status is for one specific product type. Via In-Scope, our custom research can get that information for you while also answering tougher questions you may have about the devices market in Mexico.

NEXT STEPS

Contact GHI today to explore further how our services can help you take advantage of the opportunities in Mexico’s medical devices market. Also, please see our state of the medical equipment/device market portraits for Brazil, Colombia and Peru to understand the trends in those markets as well.

The test, of European origin, classifies patients diagnosed in early non-metastatic stages into two risk groups. Patients in the low-risk group very likely would not to require chemotherapy. In Mexico, 55% of all breast cancer patients in the early stages do not need chemotherapy, but, 95% of them are treated with chemotherapy. This test would help to avoid “unnecessary toxicity”, as well as the contraindications and side-effects of both chemotherapy and drugs. The public health sector can significantly reduce its costs with this test, in addition to being sure to give the treatment that the patient needs. It is normal for patients who react badly to chemotherapy to be hospitalized to treat other types of discomfort from treatment. Of the cancer cases diagnosed in the country, 20% (190,000) correspond to breast, a disease that is covered by the Mexican health system. This is the first time that the public health system has introduced a genomic test into its diagnostic table. This decision was taken by the General Health Council from WHO estimates, according to which 1 in 3 Mexicans will have a diagnosis of cancer throughout their life. The private insurance sector in Mexico has had this test since 2009, which has generated savings of approximately USD23 million.

Elsiglodetorreon

During the presentation, it was stated that resources would allocated as: 35,361 (64%) to medicines and vaccines; 15,039 (27%) to patent medicines; and 4,926 (9%) to healing material, which will benefit 80% of the country’s population and the largest volume of the purchase will be for chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular diseases. The Secretary of the Civil Service and the ISSSTE added that this year will be tendered a thousand 609 keys, of which 768 are medicines, 692 cure materials and 149 patents, and will select those that guarantee greater competition, better prices and curative efficiency.

This year’s consolidated purchase – the fifth since starting this scheme in 2013 – has a growth of 13% compared to 2016 and a 20% increase in the number of participants and guaranteed transparency through the intervention, throughout the process, of representatives of national and international social organizations, as well as external actors of the public sector.

During the presentation of the scheme of this tender, the IMSS detailed that the number of pieces required will be 2.184 million units, 6.6% higher than last year, making it the largest purchase of health supplies in the history of the country.

At the time, the Public Service Secretariat, stated that through this consolidated purchase scheme, IMSS has been able to improve the quality of services in health, based on the quality of life and well-being of the citizenship. Finally, it was stated that all public servants involved in the operation of the bidding will sign a declaration of no conflict of interest, to guarantee their impartiality and confidentiality and, as in previous tenders, this stage of the process was transmitted live by social networks to ensure maximum publicity and transparency.

Aristeguinoticia

Photo: Aristeguinoticia

To fill this gap, Global Health Intelligence (GHI) decided to delve into its database (which covers 86% of all hospitals in Latin America and now includes Bolivia, Uruguay and Paraguay) to analyze which hospitals have the highest equipment counts in 4 specific categories:

• Patient care (number of beds)
• Diagnostic imaging equipment
• Cardiovascular equipment
• Maternity unit equipment

These four categories are critical pillars when evaluating patient care. The number of beds within an institution is often an indicator of the size of the hospital and may be correlated to the level of care. Diagnostic imaging equipment is essential to properly diagnose any number of life-threatening and chronic conditions. Cardiovascular equipment is just as important given the prevalence of heart disease in Latin America. A majority of births take place in hospitals and birthing is one of the main activities of most hospitals, which denotes significant importance to maternity units and infant care. While additional categories could have been included, GHI decided to focus on these 4 areas of care in order make the ranking more manageable.

Why Multiple Categories and Countries?

Rankings are often all-encompassing with no specific focus, such as the “The 50 best hospitals.” Given the complexities of healthcare systems in place and the context in which they operate, GHI opted to acknowledge these characteristics by creating a ranking per leading category. This also enables smaller yet more specialized hospitals to form part of the ranking.

GHI applied the same plurality by setting up the rankings per country in order to reflect local market dynamics accurately. For example, Brazil has over 200 million people and over 7,000 hospitals. It would be an unjust comparison to include Brazilian hospitals alongside those of Peru, for instance, a market that’s 10 times smaller.

Rankings for the Best Equipped Hospitals

The best-equipped hospitals in Argentina
The best-equipped hospitals in Brazil
The best-equipped hospitals in Chile
The best-equipped hospitals in Colombia
The best-equipped hospitals in Dominican Republic
The best-equipped hospitals in Mexico
The best-equipped hospitals in Peru
The best-equipped hospitals in Puerto Rico

Dive Deeper

This GHI ranking will give you an initial sense of which Latin American hospitals are best-equipped. But that’s just a surface view. It takes a deeper dive into the data to understand which market segments have the best potential to drive your revenues.

You can get this deep dive by subscribing to our database , which quickly lets you use data visualization tools to see which hospitals have the biggest needs and what those needs are. Parsing that is what will uncover opportunities for your sales team and allow you to grow your revenues in different markets. Check out this video to understand how the database can help drive new and existing revenue streams. Then contact GHI directly for an even deeper sense of how our database can be the perfect tool for your sales team.

Leading the trend were products related to artificial respiration; massage equipment; instruments and equipment using UV, visible or IR optical radiations; as well as CT Scanners, X-ray machines, radiography/radiotherapy equipment. In number of units, all these categories demonstrated a CAGR of over 20% from 2014 to 2016f.

Download the complete report for more information.

The report requested the government to consider the policies for allowing better distribution of professionals in locations deprived of specialists. Two migratory waves were observed in Uruguay; one during the dictatorship and the other during the economic crisis in 2002. However, the situation seems to have reversed with very few doctors migrating to other countries in search of better working conditions.

According to the Medical Union there is zero unemployment in the sector, yet 7% and 10% of Uruguayan doctors work abroad. The majority travel to Spain (51.7%) followed by Chile (24.4%). With the reversal of situation, doctors from other nations are moving to Uruguay for work, especially from Venezuela, Cuba and Pakistan.