MEDICA 2024 and COMPAMED 2024: medical technology industry uses global reach to compete for innovation leadership

“Meet Health. Future. People.”  is MEDICA’s campaign motto for the future in the new trade fair year 2025.  The aptness of the motto was confirmed by the success of MEDICA 2024 and its concurrently held number 1 supplier trade fair, COMPAMED 2024. “The best options for global networking were on offer, along with an incredible variety of cutting-edge innovations and top-level programme highlights.  MEDICA is unique in its global reach”, says Marius Berlemann, Chief Operating Officer of Messe Düsseldorf, clearly impressed by all that happened at the exhibition booths and on the programme stages. From 11 to 14 November, a total of 5,800 exhibiting companies from 72 nations presented their expertise to some 80,000 trade visitors (from 165 countries) and provided an impressive overview of modern healthcare solutions for inpatient and outpatient care. The trade fair is one of a kind worldwide for its inclusion of the entire medical technology value chain, which also comprises technically sophisticated supplier products. With a high proportion of decision-makers and high satisfaction ratings, both events were perfectly in line with the excellent results of previous years.

More than 90 percent of the visiting professionals who travelled to the event have decision-making authority, and more than 90 percent of visiting professionals were satisfied with their participation in the event.

“This boosts our exhibitors’ business. Overall, the trade fair’s success shows us that the international competition for leadership in medical technology innovation is gaining momentum and, as in other industries, companies from Asia are also heavily involved. In addition to the German companies participating, other national and regional businesses from Europe, China, South Korea, India and, of course, Japan and Taiwan were particularly well represented with top innovations. We are particularly pleased with the large number of exhibitors from the United States, which once again made up almost 10 percent of all exhibitors, with their variety of joint booths, including those representing multiple US states”, explains Christian Grosser, Director Health & Medical Technologies at Messe Düsseldorf.

In particular, the high level of internationality among exhibitors and visitors once again proved a decisive success factor for the many newcomers participating in MEDICA and COMPAMED, for small and medium-sized companies and for players operating in highly specialised niches in their search for partnerships for development, contract manufacturing or distribution. “MEDICA brings together thousands of industry experts from around the world every year. It is the ideal stage to discover the latest advances and developments in the healthcare sector and to forge valuable contacts”, Maxine Wang, Managing Director of Bricon GmbH, describes the inspiring global exchange during the trade fair. Her company specialises in the development, manufacture and worldwide distribution of spinal implants.

Hospital Conference provides powerful impetus for the trade fair business 

For more than half a century, MEDICA has been characterised by its ability to surprise with innovations, with programme updates that keep pace with the times and that, ideally, bridge the gap between knowledge transfer, professional discussion and the relevant exhibitor innovations.

One important new feature this year was the themed hall space allocation in the MEDICA spheres “Med Tech & Devices“ and “Digital Health“ (Halls 12 and 13) with a new location for the accompanying German Hospital Conference. For the first time, the leading event for the top management of German hospitals was held at the very centre of the trade fair in Hall 12.  The much-anticipated opening of the 47th German Hospital Conference saw German Federal Minister of Health Professor Karl Lauterbach (via livestream) and North Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Health Karl-Josef Laumann, among others, address the delegates, focusing in particular on the changes in the German hospital landscape as a result of the impending hospital reform.

Particularly relevant exhibitors presented hospital decision-makers with innovations for clinical equipment and operating theatres around the event area.  This resulted in a perfect match and a powerful impetus for the trade fair business, and not only for the company LINAK. Together with TENTE, LINAK presented a new type of drive system that can be integrated into most hospital beds. This works according to the e-bike principle and noticeably relieves burdens on hospital staff when transporting patients. “MEDICA was an excellent opportunity to present our new product, which will revolutionise the care sector. We were able to address medical personnel, hospital management, developers and health politicians alike”, explains LINAK’s Managing Director Christoph Messing.

Exciting sessions and special events

In the neighbouring MEDICA world of experience “Digital Health”, the range of exhibitors was complemented by a packed stage programme (MEDICA HEALTH IT FORUM, MEDICA ECON FORUM and MEDICA INNOVATION FORUM) as well as special events such as the MEDICA START-UP PARK (with a record number of 60 start-ups) and the Wearable Technologies Show, all of which ensured excitement and attracted a great deal of attention. The Hospital of the Future is a relatively new addition to the MEDICA programme. The special exhibition started last year and is now being continued with a focus on digital networking and cooperation via telemedicine in hospital networks. The Korea Medical Device Association (KMDA) agreed to a collaboration and presented digital innovations for rapid patient diagnostics in hospitals in a dedicated zone, which also used AI-based software.

In addition to the popular start-up competitions, the Women Leaders in Healthcare session at the MEDICA INNOVATION FORUM, which is now tailored to the entire spectrum of digital innovations, was  one of the absolute highlights on the second day. The session featured, for example, Hadas Bitran from Microsoft, Ayelén Fernández from HP, Audrey Sherman from Solventum and Nina Wöss from Female Founders. They provided insights into how they achieved success and attained management positions, and how they are playing a decisive role in shaping innovation and digital transformation in the still mainly male-dominated medical technology and health IT business.

In the final of the 13th MEDICA START-UP COMPETITION, Robeauté from France was the winning pitch team on the forum stage with a newly developed microrobot for use in neurosurgical procedures. This year’s Healthcare Innovation World Cup was won by the Samphire Neuroscience team from the United Kingdom with a headset that acts on the neural networks of the brain to help alleviate menstrual pain and the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome (PMS).

News about the year’s hot topics

With programme sessions at the forums and conferences and with exhibitor presentations in the five trade fair spheres, MEDICA 2024 shone a spotlight on all the year’s hot topics driving the healthcare sector against the backdrop of its digital transformation, such as the growing importance of interconnected models of care. The focus was also on AI-supported systems, robotic solutions and concepts for dealing with the urgent shortage of skilled workers. Among the innovations presented at the trade fair were robotic applications to assist with highly complex neurosurgical procedures or orthopaedic operations (including hip replacements). Also new was an AI-based tool for the automatic documentation of medical consultations, a whole range of rapid tests for point-of-care diagnosis of a wide variety of infectious diseases (e.g., gonorrhoea or the mpox virus including the problematic clade Ib mutation) and a medically certified smartwatch (Huawei) for easy blood pressure measurement at the wrist.

The special “Automotive Health” activity area (in Hall 12), which was designed in cooperation with the Innovation Institute from Frankfurt, also attracted a lot of attention and a high visitor frequency on all days of the trade fair.  Nowadays, a number of sensors and functions can be built into cars to enable safe and healthy driving. Fatigue detection systems, which are already commonplace, are just one example. In future, many more functionalities will be able to automatically detect risks of emergencies based on the measurement of drivers’ vital data, thus possibly avoiding serious accidents. The Innovation Institute demonstrated its development expertise in this field by exhibiting vehicles such as the VW ID.4 and also made the technology tangible in a racing simulator.

COMPAMED: a platform for “enablers”

In Halls 8a and 8b, 750 supplier companies participating in COMPAMED 2024 impressively demonstrated their expertise in key technologies for use by the medical technology industry – from a wide range of high-tech components and microfluidic applications to special packaging solutions (taking cleanroom requirements into account). Two accompanying forums offered a packed programme on all days of the fair, covering the latest hot topics in the supplier sector, such as AI, robotics and automation, microtechnology developments and material innovations.

With a view to the growth markets in Asia, Messe Düsseldorf started marketing its health fairs in Singapore, Thailand, China and India, which have been successful for years, under the uniform umbrella brand MEDICARE ASIA from a central location in Singapore a few weeks ago.

The dates of the next MEDICA and COMPAMED and the international medical trade fairs under the umbrella of MEDICARE ASIA in 2025 are:

MEDICA in Düsseldorf: 17–20 November 2025
COMPAMED in Düsseldorf: 17–20 November 2025

MEDICAL FAIR INDIA in New Delhi: 27–29 March 2025
MEDICAL FAIR CHINA in Suzhou: 20–22 August 2025
MEDICAL FAIR THAILAND in Bangkok: 10–12 September 2025