The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on May 5 that COVID-19 is no longer a global emergency. This comes as a relief to the public, but for many medical device companies that have made billions off the pandemic through tests and pharmaceuticals, the end of the pandemic will further affect decreasing sales, says GlobalData , a data and analytics company.
“Companies have reported decreasing sales of COVID-19 related products for the past two quarters,” says Selena Yu, medical analyst at GlobalData.“Therefore, having the COVID-19 pandemic declared over and instead an endemic virus, and with the emergency use authorizations on COVID-19 tests lifted, IVD companies are scrambling to minimize their losses.”
Currently, there are 132 active clinical trials, out of 310 trials on infectious disease IVD devices, developing COVID-19 tests. GlobalData predicts that in the coming years, fewer new COVID-19 tests will be hitting the market; instead, existing tests will be improved. This could mean improving tests’ specificity and sensitivity and creating multiparameter tests with existing technology.
“In January 2023, many companies involved in COVID-19 tests, like Danaher , Abbott , Labcorp, and BD, made statements on their significant drops in COVID-19 tests,” Yu says.“Now that the pandemic has been announced to no longer be an emergency, the drops will become more significant in the coming months. There could be peak sales in the fall and winter seasons as respiratory disease season starts up again.”