Abstract

The international medical device trade has received a lot of attention since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.To maintain domestic supply of medical devices, some countries have sought multilateral trade cooperation or simply implemented export restrictions, exacerbating the global medical device market's instability and fragility [1-15]. Government policymakers must identify the most influential countries in the international medical device trade and prevent exports. However, due to the complexities of the international medical device trade, few efforts have been made in previous studies to investigate various countries' influence on the international medical device trade.relationships. This study builds a global medical device trade network (GMDTN) and investigates the criticality of various countries from a network-based perspective to fill these research gaps. The GMDTN's evolution patterns and geographical distribution of influence are revealed. Details on how the influence of some key countries has developed are provided. According to the findings, the global medical device trade market is export oriented. Some countries' strong influence may be formed as a result of their large number of trading partners or the deep reliance of some of those trading partners on that country (namely, breadth- or depth-based patterns). It is worth noting that the United States holds a commanding position in the international medical device tradeas well as depth Furthermore, some countries, despite not being critical direct trading partners, play an important role as intermediaries in the formation of other countries' influence. The study's findings have implications for policymakers seeking to understand countries' influence on the international medical device trade and to proactively plan responses to unexpected changes in this trade.