Despite COVID-19, healthcare supply chains remain incredibly vulnerable. In the context of a thread on events arising from the war/SMO in the Persian Gulf, it is fairly obvious to most, but not you, that this is an example assymetric warfare, which has had direct impact not just on company bottom lives, but whether people live or die. This is not due to employee fault but due to a third party. An industry wide CISA has now been issued. Stryker had thought they had an effective BYOD policy. They are deeply vertically integrated. Whether or not you think it was the fault of a Stryker employee (people like you always blame the victim), the issue is children in the US have now failed to receive life preserving treatment in relation to neurological conditions. Worldwide, people are now facing delays in receiving replacement hip joints. Those with hip fractures will now typically face significantly worsened outcomes and trncated life spans. If you are an 80 year old lying in a hospital bed with double hip fractures following a fall, a delay doesn't just mean an inconvenience. It means there is increased risk of sepsis and death. It means also increased risk of discharge to a nursing home, rather than to their own home. Delays in neurovascular surgery mean more people will die as a result of a brain aneurysm. Stryker is one of the top 5 medical device companies. Stryker has a complex global manufacturing footprint, not dissimilar to companies like Medtronic. Impacts on Stryker will certainly affect healthcare in tier 4 countries like Thailand. Its going to take months for Stryker to repair their supply chain. As they are also an OEM to some other Top 5s, there will be ripple effect. Further downstream, there might be further consequences to component suppliers, typically much smaller, and with less financial buffer, and possibly failures. Since the product is a medical device, its not trivial for Stryker to switch supplier. Every change to every Class III and many Class II device needs to be signed off by the FDA following a review. Last year, Jaguar Land Rover had 3 months of zero production, after a cyber attack. £1 billion in revenue gone.
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