The economic impact of a medical device company’s location in Italy

There is a lack of scientific evidence on the impact of a biomedical industry on the surrounding economy. The assessment of this issue would allow policy makers to identify the impact on production, local employment and wages in addition to public sector costs. With this aim, the paper evaluates the socio‐economic impact of a medical devices firm’s decision to set up its manufacturing plants in Italy, i.e. the effect of industrial activity on employment, earnings and output, using information on production processes to derive the associated interactions with suppliers for the primary industry and secondary industries. Besides being amongst the major contributors of health outcomes, medical technology manufacturers provide additional benefits to public sector and to the economy as a whole. This suggests that a broad perspective needs to be endorsed by policy makers when deciding about the introduction of new technologies in the healthcare sector in order to achieve optimal outcomes for society as a whole.