The prospective medical device tax, the continuing decline of venture investing, pricing challenges, austerity measures in Europe, and other headwinds continued to push against the medtech industry in 2012. But emerging clinical and geographic markets, along with an active M&A market, are providing the industry with some momentum going into 2013.

Diagnostics industry trends include the increasing adoption of genomics in clinical testing and with it a focus on services and workflow more so than differentiated technology; a slowdown in M&A activity, partly to allow the digestion of assets acquired in 2010-11; and the ongoing uncertainties of regulation and reimbursement of high-value molecular tests.

The debate over whether whole-genome sequencing (WGS) can compete with targeted sequencing approaches ratcheted up a notch when WGS service provider Complete Genomics tabled its plan to double capacity until, it said, “demand for clinical-grade genomes supports expansion.” But data interpretation may prove to be as much of a gating factor as sequencing speed or scope.