MedTech Forum 2021 (April 20-22, 2021 - Virtual Meeting)

The MedTech Forum 2021 was an online event at which participants from the field of medical devices, diagnostics and digital health openly shared their views on the latest trends, challenges and opportunities currently being faced. The event enticed representatives from around 30 companies from the healthcare sector, as well as those from competent authorities, notified bodies, healthcare providers, academia and patients. Parallel sessions distributed across 3 days enabled the audience to interact with the speakers through a live-chat platform. Various sessions covering health data space, digitalization and interoperability were held in a forum and were a highlight of the meeting due to the potential of health data for the improvement of patient management and healthcare systems. Hot topics included the imminent application of the Medical Device Regulation (MDR) in May 2021 and the application of the In Vitro Diagnostic Device Regulation (IVDR) by May 2022. European competitiveness in the healthcare sector, learnings from the COVID-19 crisis and how to make legislation more friendly with innovations were also topics widely discussed during the event. This report provides a summary of sessions on health digitalization, the application of the new European regulations and lessons learnt from COVID-19.