Medtech

This book offers an analysis of the dynamics of the global medical device (medtech) industry from the 1960s until the present, using the approaches of business history and industry studies. While most of the publications in the corresponding field have focused on particular countries/regions or actors, this research is unique in its scope. First, it explores the formation and development of medtech business both globally and in the major countries engaged in this industry (the United States, Japan, Germany, Switzerland, France, and China). Second, it tackles a broad range of actors and organizations, from individual entrepreneurs, medical doctors, and engineers to small family firms, start-ups, and large multinationals, as well as universities and research centers. Hence, for the first time, this book both provides a general understanding of the formation and transformation of the medtech industry throughout the world and sheds light on the main features of a fast-growing business in the twenty-first century. This book will be of value to historians, industry professionals, and analysts.

Pierre-Yves Donzé is a professor in business history at the Graduate School of Economics, Osaka University, and a visiting professor at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. His research focuses on the history of the global dynamics of industries (hospitals and medtech, watchmaking, fashion and luxury). He is a co-editor of Business History, and a member of the councils of the European Business History Association (EBHA) and of the Business History Society of Japan. His last books include Making Medicine a Business: X-ray Technology and the Transformation of the Japanese Medical System (1895-1945), Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, and The Business of Health: New Approaches to the Evolution of Health Systems in the World, Routledge, 2022 (co-edited with Paloma Fernández Pérez).