How Global Tariffs Are Influencing Medtech M&A Trends
This article featuring points from MedWorld Advisors panel at MD&M West 2026 on the impacts of tariffs on MedTech M&A, was written by Amanda Pedersen, Senior Editor, MD+DI, Informa Markets – Engineering, February 5, 2026 for MD+DI. To view the article on the MD+DI website, click here.
While tariffs have always been a factor in financial discussions, medtech leaders didn’t really put a lot of thought into them until 2016, the first time President Trump took office, said Dave Sheppard, co-founder & managing director at MedWorld Advisors during a conference session at MD&M West.
Daniel Sheppard, also managing director at MedWorld Advisors, said now there’s a shift in the industry where companies are actually incorporating the tariff assumptions into their strategy.
“I think everyone expects that this is more of a conversation that's going to be permanent and sticking around,” Daniel said.
He said the first time around, in 2016, people assumed the tariff policies coming out of the White House would be temporary and would eventually be reversed. But when you combine the ever-shifting tariff policies with the impact COVID had in exposing the vulnerabilities of the supply chain, now more executives in medtech are beginning to think about how they can lessen their exposure to the impacts of tariffs. Daniel said that level of influence is showing up in terms of companies thinking about where they get their components from and where they finish their goods.
There's also some reconfiguration that MedWorld Advisors is seeing people at different companies taking on when it comes to their supply chain, Estelle Black, business operations director at MedWorld Advisors noted.
In the video below, Dave talks about what he is seeing in the medtech industry in terms of tariff pressures influencing reconfigurations on the manufacturing side of the business.
Video transcript
Dave Sheppard: The reality is what the tariffs have done is accelerated what's been happening in supply chains really in the last maybe two decades because if you look back before the turn of the century — I feel old when I say things like that — but before the turn of the century, people worried about where do you manufacture, having the lowest cost of production to be able to serve my customers so I can be competitive, and they have the right skill sets, and I can get the right solutions out to the market. And then people started thinking around as we're set up these global footprints and you know how do I be close to my customer so I can produce for my customer and regions? And I think really that started really about 20 years ago; there were probably others doing it before then, but really the medtech industry there was this thing where everything was produced in the North America region and then was shifted down to Latin America, then we shifted to China, and then it was like and now what do we do? And I think that the strategy really became let's have a global footprint, manufacturer in China for China and in Europe for Europe, and in the U.S. for the U.S., within the Americas at least with some of the free trade agreements, but what I’m happy with is this new tariff regimes, I think that's what people are doing is they're accelerating that process which makes it more imperative that you have your set up if you're going to be selling to European customers set up in Europe and you're able to do that so you're not paying the tariffs from China or from the U.S. and Mexico and vice versa so I think that's the biggest advantage that actually is accelerating the discussion in that movement for the global footprint.
Adding to the discussion, in the video below, Daniel talks about what he is seeing in terms of medtech M&A activity being influenced by tariffs.
Video transcript
Daniel Sheppard: I think, first and foremost, to Dave’s points, it’s really accelerating the roadmaps. A lot of times there's already strategies to either create these M&A transactions or otherwise they're just moving them forward. I've heard from some people that you know they thought they were going to be impacted by the tariffs, so they had an injection molder in Costa Rica they acquired to offset some of those. Thankfully, they didn't have to react because of it, but that was something they moved up [on] the road map by two years, making that acquisition because of the tariff impact. I think you're seeing it with other larger strategics from last year Johnson & Johnson announced a $400 million tariff impact, and there was Siemens... decided to shift their manufacturing facility or some of their manufacturing from Europe to California to offset that tariff impact. So, you’re seeing some real world [impacts] that are happening right now.
This article featuring points from MedWorld Advisors panel at MD&M West 2026 on the impacts of tariffs on MedTech M&A, was written by Amanda Pedersen, Senior Editor, MD+DI, Informa Markets – Engineering, February 5, 2026 for MD+DI. To view the article on the MD+DI website, click here.
