EXTRUDED
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A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
It was 20 years
ago…
…NOT TODAY, GRANTED, and that does
muddle the cadence of the sentence, but at
my age it’s difficult to resist a Beatles reference. Be that as it may, Medical Device
Technology (MDT) magazine was launched
two decades ago in January 1990. It was
followed shortly by International Medical
Device & Diagnostic Industry, which would become European
Medical Device Manufacturer (EMDM). MDT and EMDM
merged at the beginning of 2010 into European Medical Device
Technology. To celebrate 20 years of publishing for the medtech
industry, we asked members of our editorial advisory board and
long-time columnist Maria Donawa to reflect on the achievements
of the last two decades.
As Donawa notes in her column on page 12, the regulatory
framework within which the medical device industry operates has
gone through significant changes. The New Approach to technical
harmonisation that was applied to the medical device directives has
had a profoundly beneficial impact. Before that, a patchwork of
varying requirements regulated medical devices in European countries, creating significant barriers to trade, not to mention monumental inefficiencies. Improvements are still needed, as Donawa
points out, and there is an unfortunate impulse among authorities to
sometimes let perfect be the enemy of good, but seen from a 20-year
perspective, the progress is undeniable.
Technological progress during the past two decades has been nothing short of stunning. In the view of Professor Dr Jörg Vienken, the
development of biomaterials has been a fundamental part of that process. In his article on page 34, he posits that we are entering a new era
in which our cumulative understanding of biomaterials will be applied
to a systems approach that takes into account the effects of polymers
and biomaterials and their active or inactive surface properties at the
nano level. Vienken cites a paper with the provocative title of “How
the Sum of Its Parts Gets Greater than the Whole” as being emblematic of this next phase in the development of medical technology.
Sometimes progress can be measured much more simply. I thoroughly enjoyed Paolo Galavotti’s reflections on the evolution of
medical device manufacturing as seen from the perspective of a
humble solvent dispenser. The instrument overcame initial resistance
to change medtech assembly techniques. His article is on page 38.
There is much more to recommend in this section that begins on
page 31, but I will let you discover the many other gems on your
own. Enjoy!
Norbert Sparrow
norbert.sparrow@cancom.com
