Amanda Pedersen, Senior Editor
April 21, 2025
4 Min Read
Pedersen's POV is a weekly opinion column that addresses various aspects of the medtech industry, including the good, the bad, and the controversial.
It’s been tempting in recent months to retreat into a labyrinth of manufactured bliss and ignore the geopolitical chaos that we’re currently living in.
From the trade war to wide-sweeping layoffs across the Department of Health and Human Services, medtech is faced with supply chain disruptions and regulatory uncertainty that threaten to stifle innovation and create long-lasting ripple effects across the entire healthcare system.
I cannot even begin to imagine the headache medtech executives must be enduring as they attempt to grow their businesses and provide financial guidance to investors during a time of such unprecedented uncertainty. Johnson & Johnson, for example, has factored about $400 million in tariffs into its 2025 guidance, primarily affecting its medtech business. This figure underscores the significant financial implications of geopolitical uncertainty on even the largest players in the industry.
So, I was struck by a recent blog post written by Maria Shepherd, president and founder of Medi-Vantage and the co-founder of MedExec Women. Like the true industry leader that she is, Shepherd acknowledged the troubled times we’re living in while sharing insights to help CEOs drive growth and maintain an opportunity mindset.
“Despite geopolitical uncertainty, leading CEOs are still committed to transformation, viewing it as the process of finding the silver lining of opportunity in global chaos,” Shepherd writes.
Related:Tariffs Won't Dent Boston Scientific's 2025 Growth Plans
Powerful words, I thought as I read the post, but isn’t that easier said than done? Upon reading it, I immediately reached out to Shepherd to delve deeper into her insights. The conversation did not disappoint.
MedExec Women’s annual conference just took place on April 10, and Shepherd told me there was a lot of discussion that day around the topic of managing through uncertainty.
“We still have to keep our eye on the ball. We have to figure out ways to keep our teams operating at tip-top level. We have to be looking for opportunities, even though we are faced with something that’s really never happened before, these types of headwinds,” Shepherd said. “How do we prioritize long-term transformation over quick fixes? You know, you can have a quick fix to be able to work your way through a lot of the political headwinds that we’re dealing with right now, but really, how will that affect you in the long term?”
Shepherd is on the board of a company based in Montreal, and she shared with me a strategy that company took to attract investors at a time when it is particularly challenging to do so.
Related:US-China Tariffs to Squeeze Intuitive Surgical's Margins
The company’s device was initially developed for use in orthopedic trauma, but they were able to broaden the indications for the product to be useful in vascular and critical care. In doing so, the company essentially doubled the size of its total addressable market by talking to clinicians and figuring out how the device could be useful in other areas of trauma.
“They started looking for this silver lining, and they found it,” Shepherd said. “And there may be more; they're still looking. And in the face of having this ongoing battle about tariffs and the back-and-forth between the United States and our friends in Canada ... pointing to these really viable strategies helps maintain the positivity in all the negativity.”
Shepherd also emphasized the importance of close collaboration between management teams and their board of directors to figure out ways to address the pain points that the company is up against.
One example she shared from the recent MedExec Women’s meeting came from Gwen Watanabe, the managing director of H.I. G. Capital’s HealthBridge Partners. The firm had funded a company based in Israel, and the company’s board and management team have been forced to think outside the conference room, so to speak, just to be able to keep moving forward despite being surrounded by an ongoing war.
Related:Top 40 Medical Device Companies
“People couldn’t fly in and out of Israel, so there wasn’t the ability to have regular board meetings at the facility where the company was,” Shepherd said. “So, [Watanabe] talked about how you have to be understanding, but you still have to hold the executive management team accountable.”
The board and the management team found ways to meet in other locations, such as Romania, in addition to using platforms like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
“Everybody still has to be accountable to the programs and the milestones that they signed up for, and that means that the board has to really dig in in order to be able to help out the organization and the executive teams to pivot,” she said.
At Johnson & Johnson, the company plans to invest more than $55 billion in the United States over the next four years in manufacturing, R&D, and technology. That represents a 25% increase compared to the previous four years, illustrating how some industry leaders are doubling down on domestic investment as a long-term strategy to mitigate geopolitical risks.
As medtech grapples with the consequences of the trade war and turbulence across the government agencies that regulate the industry, it must find ways to adapt and demonstrate resilience. Moving forward, success will likely depend on a combination of proactive planning, flexible strategies, and a willingness to make significant changes in response to an ever-shifting geopolitical landscape.
As tempting as it might be to ignore the headwinds, I know medtech is comprised of strong leaders who, in times of crisis, will take every tart, acidic lemon thrown their way and make lemonade.
