The costs for medical products are constantly increasing, in part due to the ever-increasing costs for delivery from Asia. Generally speaking, customers have no choice but to accept these cost increases; this is also due to a lack of transparency in price increases, which cannot be easily understood as a result. On the other hand, there is also increasing cost pressure on purchasing departments to procure products at the lowest possible price-point.
Additionally, the supply reliability of well-known manufacturers has suffered significantly since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to significant additional effort on the part customers to carry out research and seek out alternatives.
For this reason, more and more customers are tasking us with procurement directly from Asia, with no intermediaries, i.e. using their own label (termed “OEM products”) to help set themselves apart from the competition. This process can sometimes mean that products are produced by the same manufacturer as the product acquired from the original manufacturer. Of course, an important aspect here to ensuring conformity with the new MDR Regulation!
