Over 80 per cent of medical equipment expenditures are made by the public sector, while 20 per cent of sales are made to the private sector in Portugal. The Portuguese market for medical equipment is mature and presents a high level of sophistication ⁰.

Factsheet on medical devices in Portugal:

• Around 1.000 companies (95% distributer, 5% manufacturers);
• Around 360.000 registries.

In Portugal companies in the Medtech sector are represented by two associations:

• Medical device companies are represented by APORMED (Associação Portuguesa das Empresas de Dispositivos Médicos) (www.apormed.pt);
• In-vitro diagnostics medical device companies are represented by APIFARMA (Associação Portuguesa da Indústria Farmacêutica) (www.apifarma.pt).

The medical device market in Portugal is mostly made up of public sector clients, but this is not yet the case of Sensing Future as a young company with 7 years of activity in this market. Our clients are mainly from the private sector. And this is for two main reasons: the private sector has usually shorter decision times because the decision-maker is closer to the company and also because it is easier to understand and get the financing and to realize the profitability of the equipment for the institution itself.

Due to these two factors, in terms of decision time and financing, it is then easier for us to be able to have or get our equipment placed in the private sector, which is where most of our customers are.

At the public sector level, the sales process is mainly through public tenders. One of the requirements is having the certification of the device itself, which already happens with Sensing Future devices and then a public tender is made with the criteria that are published and each entity competes with its proposal with their equipment. This is something we have been doing lately and we have several public sector clients through this form of public tender.