The novel coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic had significantly impacted almost all industries across the globe. This pandemic has resulted in mass production shutdowns and supply chain disruptions, which has also affected the economy.
The COVID-19 for a longer period has adversely affected the most vulnerable groups of population, including geriatric, mothers, and children. Globally, countries are expecting drastic decline in dietary quality in low- and middle-income countries as a result of loss of income, shutdown of businesses, human and goods movement restrictions imposed by governments, de-globalization, and breakdown of food markets due to both demand shocks and supply constraints. This disease has a variable impact in different countries depending on their cultural norms, mitigation efforts, and health infrastructure, and each country is working its way out to fight against the pandemic.
The lockdown of countries lead to decreased number of knee cartilage repair surgeries as they are non-essential in comparison with the emergent services required by people affected with COVID-19. According to the weekly epidemiological report of 27th September 2020 by World Health Organization (WHO) stated 32.7 million cases of corona has been reported globally, and 991,000 patients are dead due to the coronavirus. However, 6,720,771 cases are reported in South-East Asia only, and 110,711 people died due to coronavirus. Moreover, 600,891 cases are reported in Western Pacific and 13,129 people died due to coronavirus. The implications of COVID-19 having considerable influence on the knee cartilage repair market are now starting to be felt. Various factors which have indirect influence on the decline in medical aesthetics procedures along with the decline in the adoption of knee cartilage repair include flight cancellations, travel bans, mass quarantine along with growing panic among the population, and uncertainty about future.
The COVID-19 outbreak will impact the knee cartilage repair market in the initial phase of the forecast period. Due to nationwide lockdowns, denied orthopedic services, and cancelled or postponed elective surgeries, the knee cartilage repair market is expected to decline during the initial phase of the forecasted period. However, during the latter half of the forecast period, the demand for knee cartilage repair products is expected to rise drastically.
Impact On Demand
Elective surgeries are being denied (canceled/postponed) to reserve or redirect the available limited capacities and resources (like hospital beds and patient care professionals) towards COVID-19 patient care. Moreover, various countries have enforced lockdowns and curfews to curb the rising number of positive COVID-19 cases. The lockdowns, has affected the demand for knee cartilage repair surgeries during 2020; however, this demand is expected to rise exponentially in the latter half of the forecasted period. Due to lockdowns in Q1 and Q2 of 2020, the number of elective surgeries performed significantly reduced. This has dramatically reduced the sales of knee cartilage repair products in Q1 and Q2 of 2020. On average, the growth rate declined by 20−30% in the last six months.
The key players are heavily investing in projects related to knee cartilage repair during these crises. These all factors are predicted to boost the market growth during the COVID-19 pandemic
For instances,
- In June 2021 DJO, LLC Acquired Mathys AG Bettlach, a Switzerland-based company that develops and distributes innovative products for artificial joint replacement
- In April 2021, Stryker has partnered with Minor League Baseball and became the Official SmartRobotics Joint Replacement Partner. Stryker has launched the latest innovation in joint replacement technology, Mako SmartRobotics which uses a 3D CT-Based planning software for hip and knee replacement. It helps the surgeons to create a 3D image of each patient’s unique anatomy
- In March 2021, DJO, LLC made investment in Insight Medical Systems (“Insight”), a technology company dedicated to wearable surgical navigation in orthopedics. For Next-Generation Augmented Reality Technology
- In March 2021, Smith-Nephew and Huma The digital technology has developed a remote patient monitoring app for orthopaedic surgery. Due to COVID-19, the UK surgeries are running at 50% of usual capacity, due to which there are about 250000 patients on waiting lists for orthopaedic operations. In order to restart the safe surgery, the company along with Huma as developed a way for surgeons to prepare their patients in a better way through remote patient monitoring by app
- In May 2020, MEDIPOST Co., Ltd. announced the completion of administration of all subject in the phase 1 clinical study of intra-articular injectable knee osteoarthritis cell therapy product, which is being developed as second-generation stem cell therapy product for knee osteoarthritis
Impact on Supply
The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted the supply chains for the entire manufacturing sector. According to the Institute for Supply Chain Management, 75% of the companies reported the disruptions in the supply chain due to restrictions in the transportation by the coronavirus. Also, 50% of the companies reported the unexpected delays in receiving orders, a problem compounded by supply chain information blackout from the China.
The COVID-19 situation has led to disrupted supply chains for knee cartilage repair market. The shortage of the instruments used in the surgery, along with no access to healthcare facilities where these surgeries could be done, leads to decreased availability of such procedures. This means that the supply of knee cartilage repair surgeries is limited in situations where their demand is high.
The sudden outbreak of COVID-19 and its subsequent impact on restrictions on trade and movement of goods has resulted in the shutdown of vast portions of the global economy, resulting in disrupted supply chains due to limited materials and workforce and slowdown or stopping of manufacturing. Moreover, several medical equipment manufacturing companies are retooling for priority manufacturing to produce other essential medical supplies and equipment such as ventilators.
The trade restrictions have left no choice but making domestic manufacturing of essential medical devices a necessity. During the pandemic, as the demand increases, counterfeiting and price gouging of imported goods increase.
Impact on Price
Due to the pandemic, there is delay associated with various types of limitations faced by the manufacturers to fulfill the end product order, which has resulted in the less availability of products in the market and due to which the cost of available products has increased with the several factors. Also, due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak, manufacturers are forced to find new contract manufacturers and suppliers for move manufacturing activities to different or unique facilities locations that are less impacted by outbreaks.
In current situations, the manufactures of knee cartilage repair products are facing difficulties with existing component suppliers or contracts, manufacturers which are at risk or closed or not being able to fulfill supply requirements due to challenges such as extended periods of shut down or workforce are responsible for price fluctuation of knee cartilage repair products.
The current COVID-19 episode has influenced essentially every industry, and knee cartilage repair is no exemption. There has been a tremendous and sudden lessening in the volume knee cartilage repair surgeries worldwide as wellbeing situation legitimately organize their COVID-19 reaction.
Strategic Decisions of Government and Manufacturers
During this time of crisis, Considering recent announcements from the World Health Organization (WHO), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), as well as local government agencies, several key players of knee cartilage repair market across the globe are making changes in their policies for their employees.
- In March 2020, ISTO Technologies Inc. announced that all Isto employees have been encouraged to work from home for the foreseeable future should their specific role allow it. We will continue to follow the guidelines of local, state, and federal governments to ensure we are doing our part in slowing the spread of COVID-19
- In 2020, Smith+Nephew done partnership with Tharsus to improve workplace safety and use anonymous employee data to inform effective social-distancing
- In 2020, Stryker team at medical division came together to develop a low-cost, readily available bed to ship to hospitals quickly, as caregivers faced the unprecedented need for additional equipment on the frontlines of the COVID-19 crisis. Also, donated more than 22,500 Emergency Relief Bed Kits to Project C.U.R.E
Conclusion
The desire of the patients for the knee cartilage repair treatment is strong but the practice must gain the trust and loyalty to offset the economic concerns after the COVID-19 situation. Each market is presented with individual barriers but to gain back the normality, those barriers are needed to be overcome. Along with the barriers, many opportunities will come with challenges which will aid in surging the market again. The decline in the demand for surgery is seen in order to minimize the spread of the virus and to use the resources preferentially for emergent procedures. Moreover, the government imposed lockdown in various countries across globe, further added to the burden of decline in the demand for the surgery.
Concerns directly linked to COVID-19 such as personal touch, social distancing problems, or PPE concerns were recorded by 51 percent of patients with income conditions and affordability closely behind among 44 percent. Promotions and deals are one potential strategy to re-engage selected patients. Finance is a barrier to entry, with respondents concerned about potential economic changes affecting their previous routines. However, considering the use of payment plans, concerns related to intimate contact, social distancing, or PPE concerns related to income situation and affordability for cleaning protocols grouped treatment options or “bolt-on” style treatment deals, coupled with new safety measures may help patients feel comfortable, reassured and confident to return to aesthetic treatments as knee cartilage repair.
Although COVID-19 continues to raise obstacles for the sector, clinics and clinicians should adopt the lessons to ensure stable, reliable, and secure procedures and continuing correspondence to help inform patients and promote a timely return to care once clinics are re-opened.
The growth is mainly due to the companies resuming their operations and adapting to the new normal while recovering from the COVID-19 impact, which had earlier led to restrictive containment measures involving social distancing, remote working, and the closure of commercial activities that resulted in operational challenges.
