Medical Device Industry

The medical device industry may not grab as many headlines as the pharmaceutical industry and other subsectors of the life sciences field, but an argument can be made that it is the field's backbone.

While a few states dominate the industry, many others have taken the specializ ation route, cultivating niches. Estimates place the U.S. industry at US$43 billion in annual sales. With the aging of baby boomers, this sector figures to stay healthy.

Recent research by the Battelle organization shows the medical device and equipment industry is the largest life sciences subsector in the U.S., employing more than 320,000 at nearly 6,200 locations, with an average annual wage of $52,000.

Battelle, which released its findings as part of a comprehensive bioscience report at the BIO conference in San Francisco in June 2004, says just four states -- California, Massachusetts, Minnesota and Pennsylvania -- have large employment bases. These states account for 38 percent of U.S. employment in the industry. California has 19 percent of overall U.S. employment with approximately 62,000 workers. Florida, New York, Indiana, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin have "sizable" medical device employment, according to Battelle.

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