electronica 2018

••• 7 ••• Messewelten Medicine and health care in a digital world electronica introduces a new event: the Medical Electronics Conference (eMEC) T he health industry is seeing more and more digital solu- tions – from prevention and di- agnosis to treatment. The new electronica Medical Electronics Conference (eMEC) will therefore feature all kinds of medicine 4.0 technologies where the medical and engineering disciplines over- lap. The eMEC will be held for the first time on 15 November 2018. Electronics are at the very heart of innovations within the medi- cal technology sector. As health care becomes increasingly digi- tized with networking, smart data analysis, and telemedicine, electronics have come to be an in- tegral element. The result of this is further market growth, which is boosted by aging and booming global populations as well as by a greater focus on individualization within medicine. On that basis, a market researcher is anticipating that the internation- al medical electronics market will generate sales of 148 billion dollars by 2024, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of twelve per cent. According to market ana- lysts, the turnover for medical IoT devices is expected to be just un- der 64 billion dollars by 2023, with a CAGR of 25 per cent. The same analysts are forecasting a little over 132 billion dollars for the glob- al e-health market by 2023. However, there are a whole host of risks that are not to be un- derestimated. For instance, the market concentration is set to continue to rise alongside the competition from emerging mar- kets. Not to mention that huge IT companies from outside of the industry are on the verge of ad- vancing into the first health mar- ket given that many innovations in future are going to be based on data and software. Plus, regulato- ry requirements surrounding mar- ket and product approval, such as the amended EU Medical Device Regulation, slow down the rate of growth and bring about consider- able costs. And then there are the security risks associated with on- line networking (IoT). All of these issues will be covered at the first ever Medical Electronics Confer- ence (eMEC) and at the Medical Electronics Forum at electronica. A premiere in 2018: the Medical Electronics Conference (eMEC) Photo: Messe München GmbH / Alex Schelbert