According to an October 2012 report by the United States International Trade Commission (the Commission), the market for remanufactured goods in the U.S. exceeds $43B and supports at least 180,000 jobs; of those numbers, $1B in revenue and over 4,000 jobs are generated by the remanufactured medical device industry alone. “Long regarded as the world’s leading healthcare market for new and remanufactured medical equipment,” the Commission credits the growth of the remanufactured medical device industry to a number of factors, including increased pressure to cut cost, paradigm shifts in healthcare that demand greater value, and collaborative efforts by original equipment manufacturers, or OEMs, to incorporate remanufactured medical equipment into their business model. Price is cited as the principal factor for increased demand, but more importantly, the entrance of OEMs into remanufacturing practices such as single-use device (SUD) reprocessing has built serious credibility, resulting in a 50% uptick in investment from 2009-11 and an annual export rate of almost $500M.
Click Here to read the Commission’s full report on remanufactured medical devices and other industries engaged in remanufacturing in the U.S.