The medical device industry is yet again positioned to play a major role in Minnesota congressional races.
Incumbent Rep. Erik Paulsen (R-Minn.), who has been a longtime supporter of the medtech industry and led numerous attempts to repeal the medical device tax, is facing a tough re-election campaign.
Paulsen is facing off against 48-year-old liquor heir Dean Phillips (D), and is considered unlikely to keep his seat, which would be the first time since 1961 that Minnesota’s 3rd District was represented by a Democrat. In his last race, against former state Sen. Terri Bonoff (D), Paulsen won with a nearly 14-point lead, and he took the district by 25 points in 2014.
Paulsen is behind in the current race by nearly six points, according to fivethirtyeight.com, which gives the incumbent candidate only a 16.2% chance of holding onto his seat.
Medtech veteran Angie Craig, who spent 10 years with St. Jude Medical as an HR exec and also held positions with Smith & Nephew (NYSE:SNN), is facing off against right-wing talk show host and incumbent Rep. Jason Lewis (R-Minn.) in the 2nd District race.
The duo ran a very close race in 2016, with Lewis winning by less than 2 points. This year, Craig has led thus far and was nearly six points ahead of Lewis as of this writing, according to fivethirtyeight.com, which gives Lewis a 15% chance of holding the seat.
The candidates are receiving mixed support from the medtech industry, however.
Paulsen has received contributions from both Becton Dickinson (NYSE:BDX) and 3M (NYSE:MMM), of $12,000 and $15,800, respectively; Phillips enjoys the backing of UnitedHealth Group, United Health Services and Minneapolis Radiation Oncology, for $20,449, $10,840 and $10,400, respectively, according to OpenSecrets.org.
In the race between Craig and Lewis, only Craig has received direct support from the medtech or healthcare industries, bringing in $27,000 from Danaher (NYSE:DHR), $26,118 from Abbott (NYSE:ABT) and $10,000 from Minneapolis Radiation Oncology, according to the website.
Despite the odds that the seats will switch from red to blue, the local medtech industry is optimistic that Minnesota’s future candidates will continue to support and promote the medtech industry in the region.
“Because the community – in particular medtech, but also healthcare more broadly – is such a critical part of Minnesota’s economy, we get great support for this community from the delegation, from both parties,” Medical Alley president Shaye Mandle told MassDevice.com.
The medtech industry is “absolutely critical” to Minnesota, Mandle said, and therefore it’s important that their representatives understand the worlds of both large companies like Medtronic (NYSE:MDT) and the early-stage ecosystem.
“This is the most densely concentrated medical technology hub in the entire world,” he told us. “The size and scope of this community here – the jobs, the taxes they pay, the contributions to our overall economic health and our philanthropic community – if this industry were declining, the impact on Minnesota would be significantly worse than it would anywhere else.”
Just this week Paulsen spoke about the importance of the medical device industry in the North Star State.
Saying he’d just come from a visit to Abbott facilities in the area, Paulsen told more than 100 industry insiders at a “Healthcare Startup Day Minnesota” event at the University of Minnesota, that there are about 200 medical device companies in the western Minneapolis suburbs he represents, many of which are small businesses. The congressman cited his work on a permanent repeal of the medical device excise tax, tax reform, better FDA regulation and changing anti-kickback laws as evidence of his work to support the industry.
“Medtech here in Minnesota is so critical and important. We want to make sure that hotbed continues,” Paulsen said during the event, which the university and Medical Alley hosted for the U.S. Health & Human Services Dept.
Paulsen and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) have served as advocates for medtech in Minnesota and are “extremely educated on what the world really looks like, so they’re able to bring expertise to the public policy arena as it relates to healthcare and medtech,” Mandle noted.
For Minnesota in particular, Mandle said that the region’s representatives in the upcoming 116th Congress will need to understand how healthcare is transforming and the dynamics affecting each set of players.
“One of the things that’s really critical for Minnesota will be policy shifts related to this, and having legislators that really understand how the lines are getting blurred, and that they understand the importance of having an early-stage ecosystem,” he said. “Our delegation has to be, I think more than any other state, aligned around healthcare.”
The candidates did not respond to requests for a comment on the state’s medtech industry.
