Future of Pharma Industry and Medical Devices after Corona Pandemic

Abstract

A respiratory disease of unknown cause detected in Wuhan, China was first reported to the WHO Country Office in China on 31 December 2019. The outbreak was declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern on 30 January 2020. On 11 February 2020, WHO announced a name for the new coronavirus disease: COVID19. WHO is working 24 X 7 to provide advice, analyze data, coordinate with partners, help countries prepare, increase supplies and manage networks with experts. By 11 June 2020 Current evidence suggests that most transmission occurs from symptomatic people through close contact with others very rapidly. Correspondingly, most of recommendations by WHO on personal protective measures like use of masks and physical or social distancing are based on controlling transmission from symptomatic patients, including those with mild symptoms who are not easy to identify early. Comprehensive studies on transmission from asymptomatic patients are difficult to conduct, as they require testing of large population cohorts and more data are needed to better understand and quantify the transmissibility of SARSCoV-2. During this global pandemic, the medical device regulatory environment is quickly adapting to meet the challenge of supplying sufficient PPE to front-line healthcare providers and lifesaving equipment to those people in medical need. Manufacturers of medical device have to rise up to meet this challenge and embrace these opportunities to bring their device faster to the market and help us to take us out safely on the other side of the COVID-19 curve. One industry that is majorly impacted by this global crisis is the ventilator industry. There’s currently thought to be a global shortage of thousands of ventilators as the world attempts to tackle the deadly pandemic. During this pandemic health care systems are overwhelmed, and the effective delivery of medical care to all patients has become a challenge worldwide. Insufficient attention to early warning signs, inadequate stockpiling, lack of access to testing kits and personal protective equipment (PPE), and nationwide variability in the approaches to testing, distribution of PPE, and timing and degree of social distancing measures likely all affected the spread of the disease. Inadequate PPE, overcrowding, and difficulty protecting existing patients are key challenges to the medical industry.