Two huge medical trade shows took place over the weekend in Dusseldorf, Germany. The 2012 MEDICA Trade Fair ran from Nov. 14 – 17 and the COMPAMED trade show ran from Nov. 14 – 16.
MEDICA is billed as the world’s leading forum for in-patient and out-patient medicine, boasting around 4,500 exhibitors from around the world displaying their products throughout almost two dozen exhibit halls spanning nearly 1.3 million square feet of space.
COMPAMED, meanwhile, is the international trade fair for suppliers’ products in medical manufacture. It offers a comprehensive range of parts and components, raw materials, precursor products, equipment and technologies for medical instruments, as well as packaging and services for the medical technology industry.
Together, these two trade shows are the biggest events in the healthcare industry in the world.
Normally, I would be checking the Twitter feeds for these types of events to see what participants were excited about. And while that works well with a conference, most trade show tweets were in the form of; ‘We are at MEDICA, come to our booth at this location …’ Not that there is anything wrong with that, of course. That’s the whole point of MEDICA.
Fortunately, the folks at Messe Dusseldorf, the company that puts on both MEDICA and COMPAMED, have comprehensive websites up for both events.
I am still going to try and work some tweets in here, like a tweet from SP Services UK Ltd., an international supplier of first aid, medical, ambulance, paramedic and emergency rescue equipment from Telford Shropshire in the UK, that said “Busy first hour at #Medica2012 so far. The stand is looking good & lots of foreign visitors heading straight to the British half of our hall.”
One of the biggest stories out of MEDICA this year (and that’s saying something considering how big the event is) was the participation of new countries, particularly Arab countries that were in Germany to form partnerships with German medical manufacturers.
“It’s interesting to see that we have some new countries here at MEDICA for the first time, countries which normally are not expected to be active in the field of medicine and health,” Horst Giesen, project director of MEDICA and COMPAMED said. “For example, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, New Zealand. These are countries that are here are MEDICA and it’s interesting to see what these countries are presenting and how they are in a certain position to be active in the medical sector.”
This sentiment was echoed by a Twitter feed that goes by the handle Qatar is Booming, which tweeted; “A first for Qatar at world’s largest medical conference and exhibition” along with a link to a story that said Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar, in partnership with three leading players from Qatar’s medical science and healthcare industry, is for the first time participating in the world’s largest medical conference.
Giesen also said he was very satisfied with how the trade shows turned out this year, pointing out that with over 70 countries participating this year, it seemed like the whole world was there learning from each other.
MEDICA did have a strong presentation component to it, with dozens of lectures going on in both German and English throughout the event. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like anyone was tweeting about these presentations (but there was some).
But that’s okay. The real focus of MEDICA and COMPAMED is the trade show itself and the networking that it facilitates.
One company that tweeted from the trade show, for example, was ZOLL Medical Corporation from Massachusetts with its Pocket CPR device. This small device fits in a person’s pocket and can be used during an emergency where CPR is required. The device, when used during CPR, provides real-time feedback and a step-by-step guide for giving proper CPR. The device provides both audio and visual feedback about the rate and depth of chest compressions to ensure you’re giving the best possible CPR to the patient in an emergency.
And it’s multilingual.
“ZOLL speaks 26 languages in PocketCPR Real-time audio-visual CPR feedback” the company tweeted from MEDICA.
The Pennsylvania Center for Trade Development certainly took advantage of the networking opportunities, tweeting on the last day; “Last day of #MEDICA 2012. PA companies report sales, high-quality leads & contacts as a result.”
The Pennsylvania Center for Direct Investment was also tweeting from MEDICA. Way to go Pennsylvania! Lots of representation.
And because I’m a San Diego girl, I have to mention Qualcomm Life from San Diego, which bills itself as the global pioneer in wireless health innovation and solutions.
The company was tweeting some interesting tidbits, like a tweet from MEDICA’s Health IT Forum that said there’s a shift from sick care systems to health maintenance systems with eHealth tools for consumers.
And also from the Health IT forum; “it takes people 24 hours/day to realize they lost their wallet & only 60 mins for the smartphone.”
Qualcomm Life’s Clint McClellan, who leads strategic marketing with the company, spoke at the Health IT Forum.
Another company that seemed to have a good run at MEDICA was Intersurgical, based in Wokingham, UK and which states that it is Europe’s leading designer and manufacturer of high quality respiratory care products for hospitals.
The company tweeted that it had a full house at its Oral Care and TrachSeal product workshop.
One thing I couldn’t help but notice amongst the tweets were a lot of mentions of drinks (both wine and beer) available at the booths during certain times.
Katie Andrews with Buy BBI, a reagent ordering resource for life science and research customers, invited people via tweet to the company’s booth for drinks on more than one occasion. I would have joined you if I was there, Katie!
Lest I give Katie a bad name, I should also mention that she invited people to the Buy BBI booth to learn about the company’s complete solution for assay development, too.
So there is just a snippet of a snippet of what went on at MEDICA and COMPAMED over in Germany this November. I urge you to check out the MEDICA and COMPAMED websites to get a better picture of the scope of these events at http://www.medica-tradefair.com and http://www.compamed-tradefair.com respectively.
Just how big were they? Well, just ask Mat Packer from Newcastle, Australia, who tweeted; “I’m almost embarrassed to admit I’m not sure what day it is..been a big/long week away from home. #Medica2012.”
Don’t be embarrassed Mat. MEDICA is enough to make anyone lose track of time.