From the surgeon's yes to the tender
You sell surgical systems, implants, diagnostic devices or wearables to hospitals, clinic groups and laboratories in Europe and the US. A clinician can want your device after one demonstration, and most of your pipeline sits between that interest and a purchasing process run by people who never saw the demonstration. For a Swiss company those buyers are mostly abroad, since around half of Swiss medtech exports go to the EU and the USA is the largest single export market.
Who this page is for
- Surgical system and implant makers selling to hospitals and clinic groups
- Diagnostic device and wearable makers selling to hospitals and laboratories
- Swiss medtech companies selling to hospitals in the EU and the USA
Usual starting point: Demand
How do you increase sales for a medtech company?
Carry the surgeon's interest through the people who decide the purchase. A value analysis committee or a public tender sits between a clinician's yes and an order, so map purchasing, finance, clinical engineering and the sponsoring department at each named hospital, build the financial and clinical case the committee will ask for, and time outreach to tender notices and new department heads.
What do the numbers say about Medtech?
Each figure links to the page it comes from, so you can check it before you repeat it.
| What the evidence says | Source |
|---|---|
| The European medical technology market is estimated at roughly EUR 173 billion in 2025. | MedTech Europe (2025) |
| Around 50% of Swiss medtech exports go to the EU, and the USA is the largest single export market. | Swiss Medtech (12 September 2024) |
| MDR transitional periods run until 31 December 2027 for class III and class IIb implantable devices, and until 31 December 2028 for other classes. | Dutch Health and Youth Care Inspectorate |
Why does the usual approach stall in Medtech?
A clinician's enthusiasm starts a purchase without deciding it. In US hospitals a value analysis committee, which usually includes physicians, nurses, administrators, supply chain specialists, risk specialists and purchasing agents, has to be shown that a product makes sense financially and clinically, and public hospitals in Europe often buy through published tenders whose criteria are fixed before suppliers are invited. Your champion holds the clinical case but rarely the economic one, so the deal waits until someone assembles evidence for a committee you never meet.
Volume marketing reaches the clinicians who already like the technology, while supply chain, finance and hospital management never see material written for their question. Every claim also has to stay within what your device is cleared or certified for and passes your regulatory team before it is published, so broad campaigns ship slowly and say little, and with a few hundred hospitals and clinic groups in your target markets the platforms never collect enough conversions to learn who the buyers are.
If your device has no CE certificate or FDA clearance yet, the constraint is regulatory, and if you sell consumables through distributors to thousands of practices, volume channels will serve you better, so this page describes the wrong problem in both cases.
Where does pipeline break in Medtech?
We look at five stages in the Diagnostic, because each fails for a different reason. The rows show the failure we look for first at each stage and what changes once Torke fixes it, in the order a deal meets them.
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Discovery
Where it breaks
Supply chain, finance and hospital management find only clinical material aimed at surgeons, never material written for their question
What changes once it is fixed
The Visibility practice puts the economic case, within your approved claims, on the pages hospital approvers and AI assistants read first
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Timing
Where it breaks
A tender's criteria are shaped months before publication, and a supplier who first reads it then bids on someone else's specification
What changes once it is fixed
Account signals lists new centres, department appointments and published tenders, so Demand reaches a hospital project while it is planned
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Evaluation
Where it breaks
The clinician holds the clinical case but not the economic one, so the value analysis committee never sees evidence on cost and outcomes
What changes once it is fixed
Demand covers purchasing, finance and management at the champion's hospital, and Campaigns on approved claims keeps every line within your claims
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Qualification
Where it breaks
Interest from clinicians who like the device is counted as pipeline, although nobody who signs a hospital purchase has spoken
What changes once it is fixed
A lead counts only when a named person in the buying group at an agreed hospital states a need or a timing in their own words
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Handover
Where it breaks
Distributor markets and direct markets are counted apart, so nobody can compare them or say which hospitals are moving
What changes once it is fixed
Revenue operations sets one set of lifecycle stages and routing in your CRM, so every market is counted the same way
Who is in the buying group?
One person rarely decides alone, so a lead from the wrong role moves nothing. These are the roles we map at every account on your list.
Who signs
The hospital's management or the head of the purchasing department, on the recommendation of a value analysis committee or a tender evaluation, with the department head who will use the device as the sponsor.
Who evaluates
The surgeons, physicians or laboratory heads who will use the device, nursing and clinical staff, and biomedical or clinical engineering for installation and maintenance.
Who can block
Supply chain and purchasing when the device sits outside existing contracts, finance when the economic case rests on unchecked assumptions, and IT security for connected devices.
Which signals open an account in Medtech?
Each signal is a dated, public event a sceptical buyer could check in thirty seconds. Market-wide news can change an account's conditions, and we never write it up as something that company did.
| Signal | What it changes inside the account |
|---|---|
| Your device receives a CE certificate under the MDR or an FDA 510(k) clearance | A market opens on a known date, and hospitals that showed interest can now buy |
| A hospital or clinic group announces a new centre, wing or department | Equipment for it is being specified now, before any tender is written |
| A new head of a clinical department is appointed | A new owner reviews the department's equipment and practices in their first year |
| A competing device is withdrawn rather than recertified under the MDR, whose transition ends on 31 December 2027 or 2028 depending on device class | Hospitals using it need an alternative by a known date |
| The account exhibits or speaks at MEDICA in Düsseldorf, 16 to 19 November 2026 | Clinical and purchasing leads are reachable in person for a known week, and a meeting can be set before and after |
What does a qualified lead look like here?
The head of orthopaedic surgery at a hospital group on your agreed list replies that the group is planning a new day-surgery centre for next year and asks for outcome and cost data their purchasing committee can review. The basis for contacting them in their country is recorded, and the account is not an open opportunity in your CRM. That reply, with the centre announcement it answered, is a qualified lead.
A lead counts only when all five facts are recorded, and you have five business days to reject it with a reason. The Torke Service page explains each fact.
- Fact one
- A named person in the buying group
- Fact two
- At an account you agreed to in writing
- Fact three
- A need or timing in their own words
- Fact four
- A lawful basis for contact
- Fact five
- Not already open in your CRM
Where should you start?
Every client starts with the Diagnostic, and in medtech it most often points to Demand, because the constraint is reaching purchasing, finance and management at the champion's hospital before a tender is written.
Every engagement opens with the Diagnostic, two to three weeks that end on one of four decisions: stop, fix one barrier, run one practice, or expand later.
Usual first step for Medtech
The practice the Diagnostic most often points to here, run month by month once it does.
Get in touchHow do Torke Service and Torke Engine help?
The same engines run in both, so you can begin with one and move to the other without starting over.
Torke Service, we run it
For example, a surgical device company with interested surgeons at a dozen hospitals finds that none of those deals reached the purchasing committee. Torke runs Demand against the agreed list of hospital groups, watching for new centres and department appointments, and covers the champion's purchasing and finance colleagues in the same weeks.
How Torke Service worksTorke Engine, your team runs it
Campaigns on approved claims matters most here, because every line has to stay within the claims your regulatory team approved, and Account signals matters next, because new centres, appointments and tenders are public and dated. Inbound response answers requests in the buyer's language and routes them by segment, which matters when one sales team covers hospitals in several countries.
For example, a marketer asks the assistant to draft a newsletter for hospital purchasing teams about a newly certified indication. The assistant returns a draft in which every line is checked against the approved claims, flags the sentence it removed because it described a use outside the certified indication, and leaves sending to a signed-in person.
How Torke Engine worksWhat can you expect?
You can stop after any stage and keep what it produced.
A Diagnostic that can say stop
In two to three weeks the Diagnostic names the one constraint between clinical interest and purchase, and ends on one of four decisions: stop, fix one barrier, run one practice, or expand later.
Leads you can check and reject
Each qualified lead names a person in the buying group at an agreed hospital, with the need in their own words and the evidence attached, and your team has five business days to reject it.
A monthly read with honest gaps
Every month you receive the leads and a written read of coverage, spend against plan and each channel's contribution, and long purchasing cycles mean some results are reported as too small to judge.
What do teams in Medtech ask about Torke?
Each answer stands on its own, so you can forward one to a colleague, and an assistant asked the same question can quote it as it is.
Why does a surgeon's interest not turn into a hospital purchase?
In US hospitals a value analysis committee, which usually includes physicians, nurses, administrators, supply chain specialists, risk specialists and purchasing agents, has to be shown that a medtech product makes sense financially and clinically, and public hospitals in Europe often buy through tenders whose criteria are fixed before suppliers are invited. The clinician who champions the device rarely holds the economic case, so the deal waits. Torke's Demand practice covers supply chain, finance and department leadership at the same hospital as the champion.
How does Torke keep medtech marketing within the approved claims?
Torke Engine's Campaigns on approved claims module checks every line of a medtech company's ads, newsletters and web copy against the claims its regulatory team approved and the word rules it set, and flags any sentence no approved claim supports. It exports files in each platform's import format with paid campaigns paused, and a signed-in person releases everything that leaves.
Where should a medtech company start with Torke?
A medtech company starts with Torke's Diagnostic, two to three weeks spent on the hospitals where a clinician asked for the device and nothing followed, read against the account list and recent wins and losses. It most often points to the Demand practice, because the constraint is reaching purchasing, finance and management before a tender is written, and sometimes to Revenue operations when distributor and direct markets cannot be compared.
How long is the sales cycle for medtech companies selling to hospitals?
Healthcare sales guides commonly put it at 6 to 18 months, with clinicians, a value analysis committee, procurement and executives involved. Large hospital groups sit at the long end, and public hospitals in Europe often add a published tender with fixed criteria.
What is a hospital value analysis committee?
A committee that reviews new products before a hospital buys them. It usually includes physicians, nurses, administrators, supply chain, risk and purchasing staff, and the vendor has to show the product makes sense financially and clinically.
Bring us the problem, and we bring the solution to it
Tell us what your team sells, who buys it and where deals stop moving. You'll get a written reply saying which way of working fits you, or whether a Diagnostic makes sense, and if neither does, the reason.