Navigating 2026: The Top 10 Health Technology Trends Every Leader Should Watch — Part 10
For decades, supply chains did their best work largely out of sight. Few outside operations spent much time thinking about how many borders, suppliers, factories, and transportation networks made devices, diagnostics, and therapies possible.
That luxury is disappearing.
Tariffs, geopolitical tensions, shipping disruptions, material constraints, and increasingly complex products have made supply-chain strategy a C-suite issue. At the same time, healthtech companies face growing expectations to reduce waste, lower emissions, and demonstrate the environmental impact of how they design, manufacture, and deliver their products.
Those priorities can sometimes compete, but they can also reinforce one another.
For leaders in medical devices, biopharmaceuticals, and diagnostics, the challenge is increasingly to build supply chains that are reliable enough to withstand disruption, efficient enough to protect margins, and sustainable enough to meet the expectations of customers, regulators, and markets.
Upstream movement
Deloitte’s midyear 2026 survey of 150 life sciences executives found companies increasingly focused on strengthening fundamentals like productivity, investment discipline, partnerships, and resilience. For medtech specifically, Deloitte identified supply-chain management, operating footprints, and operational continuity among the areas where leaders should strengthen resilience as external exposure grows.¹
The implication is that resilience is not simply keeping more inventory in a warehouse, but begins much earlier—with product design, sourcing decisions, supplier qualification, manufacturing strategy, and visibility into where vulnerabilities exist.
Consider a sophisticated critical-care ventilator. Medtronic documented in 2020 that one of its ventilators contained more than 1,500 parts sourced from 100 suppliers in 14 countries. Those parts included microprocessors, printed circuit-board assemblies, specialized molded components, and software needed to analyze patient variables.²
One finished device can therefore sit at the end of an extraordinarily complex global network. A disruption involving any supplier, material, country, or component can create consequences many steps downstream. A pharmaceutical company dependent on a limited number of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) sources faces a similar challenge. So can a diagnostics manufacturer whose reagent, semiconductor, or packaging source cannot be quickly replaced without validation and regulatory consequences.
This is one reason local and regional production is gaining attention internationally. The World Health Organization said in July that sustainable local manufacturing of medicines, vaccines, and diagnostic tests has become a strategic priority for strengthening health-system resilience. WHO also emphasized that manufacturing capacity alone is insufficient; resilient ecosystems require skilled workforces, quality systems, predictable demand, financing, and supportive regulatory environments.³
In the U.S., FDA’s PreCheck pilot similarly aims to accelerate domestic pharmaceutical manufacturing through earlier regulatory engagement and a more predictable pathway for new facilities.⁴
The trend is clear: where and how health technologies are made is a big part of competitive strategy.
Tariffs are changing the equation
Global trade policy has complicated that calculation.
It’s no surprise that the U.S. tariff environment for health products has shifted considerably in the past couple of years. For pharmaceuticals, current Customs and Border Protection guidance applies additional Section 232 duties to certain patented pharmaceuticals and associated ingredients. Exposure varies by product, country of origin, and company-specific arrangements, while generic pharmaceuticals and their associated ingredients are excluded from the additional duties.⁵
Drugmakers are already adjusting their footprints. Reuters reported in August that major pharmaceutical companies had announced nearly $500 billion in U.S. investments, including manufacturing, R&D, and supply-chain infrastructure, as companies work to expand domestic capacity and reduce exposure to tariffs and overseas supply disruptions.⁶
Medical devices face a different but similarly fluid environment. MedTech Europe reported in September that new U.S. Section 301 measures result in total tariffs of 10% on applicable products from the European Union and United Kingdom and 12.5% on Swiss-origin goods unless exemptions apply. Additional trade investigations affecting medical technology also remain unresolved.⁷
Hospitals are watching closely. The American Hospital Association noted this summer that the U.S. imported more than $75 billion in medical devices and supplies in 2024 and cautioned that broadly applied duties could increase costs or disrupt access while domestic manufacturing capacity takes years to develop.⁸
The financial impact can also change rapidly as policies, court rulings, and trade agreements evolve. Philips, for example, recovered €186 million in previously paid U.S. tariffs during the second quarter after completing much of a refund process.⁹
For executives, the lesson is less about predicting the next tariff announcement than building an agile organization capable of responding when assumptions change.
Traceability as part of resilience
Tariffs are only one trade-related exposure. Companies also face tighter scrutiny around where products and materials originate, how they move through the supply chain, and whether prohibited labor practices are involved.
U.S. law has long prohibited imports made with forced labor. In July, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative took additional action under Section 301, imposing tariffs on 60 trading partners based on findings that they failed to impose and effectively enforce prohibitions on imports produced with forced labor.¹⁰
Requirements are developing elsewhere as well. The European Union’s Forced Labour Regulation becomes applicable in December 2027 and will prohibit products made with forced labor from being placed on or exported from the EU market. The European Commission launched its implementation period this summer with tools including a forced-labor risk database and resources specifically designed to help businesses assess supply-chain exposure and traceability.¹¹
For healthtech companies with multilayered global supply chains, that raises the importance of visibility well beyond Tier 1 suppliers.
Organizations may increasingly need to answer:
• How quickly can an alternative source be qualified?
That makes traceability a resilience capability, not simply a compliance exercise.
Greener and more resilient can go together
Sustainability introduces another dimension to these decisions—and an opportunity.
WHO reports that approximately 70% of health-sector emissions stem from supply chains. Its recent work on greener pharmaceuticals also identifies upstream manufacturing, particularly API production, as a major emissions hotspot.¹²
That puts healthtech companies in an interesting position. Reducing environmental impact can involve many of the same operational levers used to improve resilience: reducing material consumption, eliminating waste, optimizing transportation, extending product life, improving manufacturing efficiency, and building better visibility across suppliers.
Procurement is key. MedTech Europe argues that regulation alone cannot create greener healthcare; customers also need mechanisms to recognize and purchase products that deliver environmental alongside clinical and economic value.¹³
This creates opportunities for circular approaches in medical technology—where appropriate—including refurbishment, reprocessing, modular designs, reduced packaging, and longer product lifecycles.
But there’s no universal formula. A reusable device may reduce waste but require energy-intensive sterilization. Manufacturing closer to customers may reduce transportation exposure without necessarily lowering emissions if energy inputs are less favorable. Maintaining redundant manufacturing capacity can improve resilience but increase cost and resource use.
In other words, sustainable does not automatically mean resilient, and resilient does not automatically mean sustainable.
The challenge (and opportunity) is finding the decisions that advance both.
Data is the connective tissue
All of this requires better information.
Healthtech companies increasingly need visibility not only into Tier 1 suppliers, but deeper into their networks. Leaders need to know where critical materials originate, which facilities share dependencies, whether labor or sourcing restrictions could affect entry into key markets, how quickly alternatives can be qualified, and where tariff, transportation, or environmental exposures accumulate.
Technology can make those relationships more visible.
Digital supply-chain platforms, predictive analytics, and AI can help companies model scenarios before disruption occurs. Product-level environmental and sourcing data can also help substantiate sustainability claims, demonstrate provenance, and respond to procurement or regulatory requirements.
The real advantage, however, isn’t another dashboard. It is shortening the distance between indication and decision.
When a key supplier faces disruption, does the organization know:
• How does that move change tariff exposure, compliance risk, or environmental impact?
Organizations that can answer those questions quickly will have an advantage over those assembling the information after a crisis begins.
Team importance
For healthtech leaders, supply-chain resilience is therefore as much a talent and organizational challenge as an operations challenge.
They need their functions to be forward-thinking and well-connected. Supply-chain and sourcing leaders must understand geopolitical, tariff, and supplier-concentration risk. Manufacturing leaders need to evaluate localization and redundancy without sacrificing quality or efficiency. Regulatory and quality experts should be involved early enough to assess the implications of supplier or facility changes.
Sustainability leaders should help connect environmental goals to product design, procurement, and measurable business value. Technology leaders will be relied on to turn supply-chain data into actionable intelligence. Commercial and financial leaders must also understand how these factors affect customers, pricing, margins, and capital allocation.
Leaders, obviously, have their work cut out for them getting everyone to make decisions together. But it’s critical because the easiest response to disruption is often not the best long-term response.
Moving production simply to avoid one tariff can introduce new logistics, labor, quality or regulatory risks. Adding inventory can protect supply but consume working capital. Consolidating manufacturing can improve efficiency while creating a single point of failure.
The goal shouldn’t be to eliminate risk. That’s impossible.
It should be to understand which risks matter most, where the organization is exposed, and what options exist before something breaks or changes.
From efficiency to adaptability
For years, supply chains were optimized largely around efficiency: fewer suppliers, lower inventory, predictable transportation, and the lowest practical unit cost.
Healthtech leaders now have more variables to manage, including reliability, responsibility, and sustainability; geography, availability, capacity, and visibility; and regulations, tariff exposure, and traceability.
The organizations best positioned for what comes next may not be those with the cheapest or strategically situated supply chains. They will be those with options—multiple qualified paths to keep essential products moving while adapting to changes in economics, policy, customer expectations and the environment.
Sources
- Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. Confidence Under Pressure: How Life Sciences Leaders Are
Recalibrating for the Rest of 2026 (Jun 25, 2026) - Medtronic. Our Latest Statement on COVID-19 Response: An Open Letter From Medtronic Leadership to
Our Customers, Partners, and Patients (Apr 6, 2020) - World Health Organization. WHO and Partners Strengthen Global Commitment to Sustainable Local
Manufacturing for Health (Jul 20, 2026) - U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA Selects Seven Participants for PreCheck Pilot Program to
Advance U.S. Drug Manufacturing (Jun 29, 2026) - U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Guidance: Section 232 Duties on Imports of Patented Pharmaceutical
Articles and Ingredients (Jul 30, 2026) - Reuters, Global Drugmakers Invest Billions to Boost US Presence (Aug 10, 2026)
- MedTech Europe, EU-US Transatlantic Trade Relationship: State of Play (Sept 11, 2026)
- American Hospital Association, AHA Comments on Proposed Tariffs on Medications, Medical Devices (Jul
6, 2026) - MedTech Dive, Philips Largely Recoups Struck-Down Trump Tariffs in Q2 (Jul 28, 2026)
- Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, USTR Takes Action in Forced Labor Section 301 Investigations (Jul
23, 2026) - European Commission, Forced Labour Regulation (Jun 30, 2026)
- World Health Organization, WHO Consultation Builds Momentum for Coordinated Action on
Pharmaceutical Decarbonization (Jun 12, 2026) - MedTech Europe, From Regulatory Push to Market Pull: The Missing Link in Green Healthcare (Jul 30,
2026)
About the Author
Paula Norbom
is the Founder and CEO of Talencio, an executive search and staffing firm serving health technology companies. She has worked in the health technology industry for over 30 years.