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The healthcare industry has been adapting to changes induced by the COVID-19 pandemic. The medtech industry, for its part, has been pursuing mergers and acquisitions (M&As) to implement reforms and help the industry recover. Companies in the traditional clinical segments in medtech, such as orthopedics, cardiology, ear, nose, and throat (ENT), wound care, urology, and respiratory care, registered several notable acquisitions and signed a number of deals with companies in emerging segments like women’s health, connectivity solutions, home-based care, infection prevention, patient monitoring, and integrated operating room (OR).

Acquisitions have become the preferred way for companies to include new technologies, capabilities, or solutions to their existing product portfolio. Some acquisitions were made to help the companies expand their presence in different regions or segments. The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic led some companies that were struggling to reduce debt or recover losses, to make certain divestitures. Several companies also made divestitures to focus on the company’s organic growth or invest in robotic surgery, a key disruptive technology. This study examines the different mergers and acquisitions, analyses the trends driving them, the impact on ecosystem including patients, payers, providers, and competitors. The growth opportunities focus on the inclination of companies towards upcoming technologies such as digitization, connected care and robotic surgical innovations.