The top 5 medtech CEO quotes about COVID-19 (Medical Design & Outsourcing)
5. Reducing the travel budget
“There are opportunities to deliver certain services in a less costly way, reducing the overall meeting, convention, training, travel, expenses, etc. … Every crisis also offers an opportunity here.” – Smith+Nephew CEO Roland Diggelman
4. Strategically driving growth
“All of our businesses are important to us, but they’re not all going to be invested in or managed the same. We have prioritized the high growth and most strategically relevant areas of our business. And we’re going to make very-disciplined investments there to continue to drive innovation, innovation centered around improving patient outcomes and also providing for procedure efficiencies.” – Zimmer Biomet CEO Bryan Hanson
3. Not cutting back on innovation
Baxter CEO Joe Almeida spoke of a 100% focus on innovation at the company. “We have no intention to let that down one iota. … We are responsible people here who will do the right thing to make sure that our expenses are in control. Everybody knows that. But there is a bigger commitment to innovation and to our research and development groups, which are doing an extraordinary job under very difficult circumstances to have data-completing clinical trials, data submitted to agencies for product approval.”
2. COVID-19 testing is here to stay
“We see that COVID testing will stick around. Even when you have a vaccine, I can see patients going to a physician’s office with a fever and they want to know, ‘Is it influenza? Is it the flu? Is it COVID?” – Abbott CEO Robert Ford
1. Discovering greater efficiencies
“We’re going to embrace flexible work arrangements going forward, and we are not going to need the same real-estate by any stretch that we have today, and a lot of our CapEx over the past few years has been on office buildings and because of our growth and all the headcount we’ve been adding and all the companies we’ve been acquiring. And frankly, we’re seeing a big change and what’s going to be required in the future. So those are all areas on the efficiency front. And what I would tell you is this pandemic has shrunk our company. Our divisions are collaborating more than ever.” – Stryker CEO Kevin Lobo