Healthcare Industry: Robust Growth in international trade confirmed in 2025

The 2025 preliminary global trade figures, available in the ExportPlanning Information System, confirmed the growth potential of global sales of the Healthcare industry¹.

Global sales of healthcare products also maintained a sustained growth rate in Q4 2025, leading to an average annual result of nearly +9% at constant prices...

In the most recent quarter (Q4-2025), global exports of Healthcare products showed a trend growth of +9.5% at constant prices, even faster than in the first 3 quarters of the year.

In the preliminary 2025 figures, global sales of Healthcare products recorded an growth of nearly 9 percentage points (at constant prices), an improvement compared to the already positive 2024 (+7.1%).

.. in a widespread manner (albeit with varying intensities)
at the sector level...

The table below shows the 2024-2025 performance of global healthcare exports by sector. The sectoral framework highlights 2025 results (measured at constant prices) increasing compared to 2024 for all the sectors examined, albeit with different intensities.

World Exports of Healthcare Products: Y-o-Y % changes at constant prices

Within the healthcare sector, the following performances for 2025 are particularly noteworthy:

• strongly accelerated global sales of drugs: finished products² (an average annual increase of 13.5 percentage points in the 2025 average, accelerating compared to an already favorable 2024);
• improvements in global sales of electromedical equipment³ (an average annual increase of almost 7 percentage points in the 2025 average, improving the 2024 result by more than 3 points [+3.7%]), medical and dental equipment⁴ (an average annual increase of 6.5 percentage points, an improvement of almost 4 points compared to 2024) and, to a lesser extent, diagnostic drugs⁵ (+2.5% compared to 2024);
• although in positive territory, global sales of biotech drugs⁶ slowed down (+5% on average in 2025, a deceleration of 7 points compared to the very positive 2024), other healthcare products⁷ (an increase of 6 percentage points compared to 2024, but a slight deceleration compared to the previous year) and microscopes⁸ (+0.8% compared to 2024, a sharp slowdown compared to the previous year [+7.5%]).

.. but with strong differences among competitor countries.

Despite an overall positive picture, among the world's leading exporters of the Healthcare industry, performances for 2025 are highly varied:

• exports from Mexico (+20.7% at constant prices), Italy (+15.7%), Ireland (+15%) are growing strongly;
• exports from Belgium (+8.8% at constant prices), India are also growing strongly, but with relatively slower performance. (+8.2%), France (+7.6%), Germany (+7.1%), Netherlands (+6.7%) and China (+6.6%);
• weak dynamics, even with slight declines, for exports from Switzerland (+1.9% at constant prices) and, above all, United States (-0.7%).

Conclusions

The dynamics (even the most recent ones) for 2025 point to a highly dynamic environment for global healthcare exports, one of the most dynamic industries measured at constant prices.

However, the picture of widespread growth in results at the sector level is more pronounced at the level of competitor countries, with marked performance differentiation.
This latter evidence suggests to an exporting company the strategic utility of continuously monitoring market conditions, both in terms of demand and the dynamics of the main competitors for its product/strategic business area, in order to best support its international positioning.

The importance of monitoring market conditions
at a "product-specific" level

With the aim of enabling constant monitoring of foreign markets of reference at a "product-specific" level, ExportPlanning offers the Customs Declarations Database service, an "on-demand" supply of monthly market data, customized at the level of customs codes and markets of interest.