What You're Actually Buying
A medical devices and products business acquisition spans several distinct sub-categories with very different valuation profiles like medical device distributors, manufacturers of FDA-registered products, durable medical equipment (DME) operations, medical supply distributors, and specialty consumables businesses. The regulatory framework, customer base, and operational characteristics differ substantially across these categories, and identifying which one you're evaluating is the first step in proper diligence. A DME operation serving Medicare patients has completely different revenue dynamics than a B2B distributor selling to hospital systems, which has completely different dynamics than a manufacturer making FDA-cleared devices for professional use.