The Jungle, the savanna, the plains…medical devices. Every ecosystem has a delicate equilibrium that is thrown into disarray when a new predator is introduced – or in the case of the medical device ecosystem – when a new technology is introduced. Medical designers know this instinctively and want their product to be the new predator.

To prove our theory we asked 35 medical device developers what is most critical to the success of their medical device designs in the future. Over 40% of respondents to the survey [1] chose “out-innovating the competition,” more than double the second place response.

It seems keeping out other new predators is the next most critical success factor. Over 30% selected either “lowering production costs to compete globally” or “lowering development costs to compete globally” as most critical to the success of their medical designs.