The medical technology industry’s constant innovation is leading the revolutionary march toward personalized medicine—getting the right treatment to the right patient at the right time.  Improved diagnostic tests are a critical tool to help doctors develop an individual treatment plan for each patient. In cancer care alone, new diagnostic tests are beginning to pinpoint genetic sub-types with proven treatments. The result is that patients receive the right therapy the first time and avoid unnecessary illness and even death.  Yet continued innovation relies on collaboration between innovators, physicians and even patients.  Here are some amazing statistics that illustrate the pace of innovation:

• In just the last decade, U.S. medical technology patents have increased 80 percent.


• Investment in R&D by American medical technology companies has increased from four to 12 percent since the early 1990s.


• On average, a medical technology has a shelf life of only 18 months, due to the speedy pace of innovation.

To read the stories of physician innovators and how they developed crucial technologies, click here.