MedTech Funding Hit a Three-Year High in 2025, But Clinical Study Starts Fell Again: Zapyrus Report Forecasts H2 2026 Service Provider Demand Spike

Global MedTech funding reached a three-year high in 2025, but clinical study initiations declined for the third consecutive year, signaling a delayed demand wave for service providers as 2025 capital converts to 2026 clinical activity. That is the central finding of a new report released today by Zapyrus, the MedTech commercial intelligence platform built for service providers.

MedTech 2025: An Analysis of Funding Trends, Market Dynamics & Strategic Outlook is Zapyrus's annual market report. It combines the company's proprietary tracking of global MedTech funding events and clinical activity with an AI-driven analysis of approximately 150 Q4 2025 earnings calls from public MedTech original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).

The report documents a sector that is consolidating rather than expanding. Investment is concentrating in a shrinking pool of proven mid-stage companies, clinical pipelines are contracting, and large OEMs are pursuing margin through divestitures and portfolio simplification rather than new bets. Funding into the 501 to 1,000 employee bracket tripled year-over-year in 2025, while the 51 to 100 employee scale-up zone remains capital-starved, with 4.4x fewer funded companies than the 11 to 50 bracket.

For service providers supplying MedTech OEMs with clinical, regulatory, quality, and supply chain capabilities, the report argues that the gap between 2025 capital and 2026 clinical activity is the defining commercial signal of the year ahead. Contract research organizations (CROs), contract development and manufacturing organizations (CDMOs), eClinical vendors, electronic quality management system (eQMS) platforms, and regulatory consultancies should expect the downstream effects to land in H2 2026.

Key findings:

• 3-year high in MedTech funding collided with a third consecutive year of declining clinical study initiations, with Q4 2025 study starts falling to 475 (down from 547 in Q4 2024 and 629 in Q4 2023), a 24% drop over two years. A delayed activity rebound is anticipated in H2 2026 as 2025 capital flows into trials.
• Funding to the 501 to 1,000 employee bracket grew roughly 3x year-over-year to $3.2 billion in 2025, up from $1.2 billion in 2024, signaling a market rewarding companies that have cleared major clinical and regulatory milestones.
• More than one-third of 2025 strategic deal value came from divestitures and spin-offs, creating urgent demand for quality management system (QMS), supply chain, and regulatory support among newly independent entities.
• €400 to €500 million projected tariff impact at Siemens Healthineers alone illustrates sector-wide margin erosion and rising demand for manufacturing location strategy.
• 40% drop in in-vitro diagnostic (IVD) makers choosing the EU as a first launch market reflects continued EU Medical Device Regulation (MDR) and In Vitro Diagnostic Regulation (IVDR) bottlenecks reshaping launch decisions.
• AI and connected health emerged as the dominant R&D investment priorities across public MedTech OEMs.

The report also includes a real-world validation of the Zapyrus Clinical Opportunity Score, a proprietary model that predicts which MedTech OEMs are most likely to outsource clinical, regulatory, and quality work to service providers based on funding trajectory, pipeline activity, and strategic signals. In a six-month test against live 2025 data, the model held 77% accuracy, with High-scored companies initiating studies at 10x the rate of Low-scored companies.

"A shrinking group of OEMs is capturing the bulk of capital, which risks stunting innovation across the ecosystem. When early-stage MedTech companies can’t find a path to scale independently, strong ideas get shelved or absorbed and deprioritized, leaving patients to pay the price," said Danika Miller-Bouchard, Managing Director of Zapyrus. "The service providers who identify and engage OEMs at the moment an outsourcing need emerges are the ones who will win in 2026. That’s the core problem we’re focused on solving."

The full report is available for download at https://welcome.zapyrus.com/2025-medtech-recap. 

Service providers can request a Zapyrus demo at https://welcome.zapyrus.com/schedule-a-demo to see which MedTech OEMs in their territory scored High on the Clinical Opportunity Score.