3 ms·
The medical device industry (at least in the US) is very special. It does not have retailers per se, but there are a lot of middlemen who take varying, often en
by alexbecker 8y ago
The medical device industry (at least in the US) is very special. It does not have retailers per se, but there are a lot of middlemen who take varying, often enormous cuts. Medical device manufacturers make enormous amounts of money though. I am not sure how much of this is specific to the internal US market vs. carries over to US exports.
For a good treatment of this and many other aspects of US healthcare costs, see An American Sickness by Elisabeth Rosenthal.
- icebraining 8y agoBut are there examples of medical device manufacturers making a killing by selling low price commodities?
- alexbecker 8y agoI suspect that the manufacturing costs for many medical devices are quite low, e.g. stints, but this is not public data to my knowledge. But the manufacturers make a killing because they charge a high price.
- RA_Fisher 8y agoOf course the medical manufacturers do well, they're granted monopoly power from the government through the regulatory process.