For the third time in the past four weeks, stocks within the medtech industry climbed to never-before-seen heights as 2021 reared its head.
Previous highs have largely been a result of the FDA granting Moderna emergency use authorization for its vaccine candidate and its subsequent rollout to the U.S., joining the one made by Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) and BioNTech (NSDQ:BNTX), which began to be administered last month.
With the industry plugging along, MassDevice’s MedTech 100 Index — which includes stocks of the world’s largest medical device companies — finished last week at 104.67 (Jan. 1), marking its highest-ever total and a 1% uptick from the 103.63 points registered at the end of the week prior (Dec. 25, 2020).
A slight downturn came after the index hit a new high (100.75) on Dec. 4, 2020, beating the mark of 100.65 set on Nov. 9 and setting a new all-time high since the index started being recorded on Jan. 1, 2001. However, stocks have continued to rise ever since.
On Dec. 18, the markets hit their then-highest mark so far at 103.11 points, only to be bettered over the holiday stretch as the industry’s stocks continue to rise amid investor expectations of a better 2021 with hopes of reaching a post-pandemic state.
The index has now climbed more than 12 points ahead of the pre-pandemic high of 92.32, which the market reached on Feb. 19. To date, medtech stocks have increased by 13.4%.
Medtech’s stock performance was outperformed by the overall markets, with the S&P 500 Index seeing a 1.4% gain, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fared almost identically to the S&P, climbing by just 1.3%.
Medtech’s lowest point during the COVID-19 pandemic remains at 62.13 on March 23. Since then, the industry’s stocks have experienced 68.5% growth in total, as of the end of last week.
The industry continues to plug along and businesses continue to operate through the pandemic. Here are some of the major highlights from the past week:
- Medtronic CEO Geoff Martha explains the importance of competition
- Biden to bolster COVID-19 vaccine production with Defense Production Act
- Olympus acquires Veran Medical Technologies
- Teleflex acquires Z-Medica
- Two former Boston Scientific execs join spine device maker Omnia Medical
- DiaSorin gains BARDA funding for COVID-19 testing kit
- Corinth MedTech receives $5M venture loan
