The Charlotte Regional Business Alliance® Select CLT business recruitment team had many exciting opportunities for global marketing and collaboration during their November travels.
Chief Business Recruitment Officer Danny Chavez and Director of Business Recruitment Karen Davison attended the Medica Trade Fair in Düsseldorf, Germany, which showcased the international life science & biotechnology industries over a four-day period. Partnering with the South Carolina Department of Commerce, they also co-hosted an afternoon reception at the State of South Carolina booth during the show.
With more than 80,000 visitors and 5,000 exhibitors in attendance, the world’s leading medical trade fair proved to be a noteworthy event that provided a vast audience for the team to market the Charlotte Region. The team had more than 15 meetings over three days with various companies originating from Turkey, Australia, Italy, Germany, Wales, United Kingdom, Japan and the United States. The team focused its meetings with companies representing the medical devices and med tech, health tech and IT, pharma, and food sciences spaces.
Chavez and Davison with a South Carolina economic development delegation in Germany
Photo Courtesy of SCbio
Medica offered visibility into the future of the life science industry and the exciting direction it is taking. While walking through the show, it was evident to the Select CLT team that the industry is rapidly changing and developing. Due to the need to keep up with the demand for digital innovation in a dynamic and digitized world, companies are creating new devices and technologies to thrive in the growing and competitive market.
It’s possible that Covid led to the influx of innovation and competition in the market from a global level. A forum during the trade show touched on that topic as well as the challenges that remain concerning virus variants, developing diagnostics and detection systems, and vaccine progress. From AI automation and robotics to cloud-analytics and smart technologies, life science companies are becoming more innovative than ever before.
One company the team met with develops advanced AI-based SaMD, which stands for “software as a medical device.” One of their newest technologies can indicate health risks, deficiencies, and stress levels by simply scanning both eyes, similar to a device one would find at an eye doctor’s office. After the scan is complete, their technology generates a report outlining your results. These results can also be uploaded and saved to establish historical data for each patient. The device used to scan the eyes is commonly found in ophthalmologist offices today and the SaMD software can easily be added to any of these devices. This interesting integration of health care and technology proves what an exciting time it is for the future of the global life science & biotechnology industry.
