The physiotherapy equipment market generated $6.26 billion in 2023, is estimated at $6.70 billion for 2024, and is projected to reach $9.45 billion by 2029, a 7.1% CAGR driven by musculoskeletal and neurologic rehab demand, sports injury volumes, and aging populations seeking non-invasive recovery.
The immediate headline for clinical development teams is that device makers are scaling product pipelines and geographic presence. Enovis added a new osteoarthritis knee brace to its DonJoy line in early 2024, Storz Medical established a Japan subsidiary to anchor APAC growth, and Enraf-Nonius entered a U.S. distribution partnership to expand advanced rehab offerings. North America remains the largest market, while India, China, Brazil, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia are flagged for accelerated uptake tied to health system investment and sports/wellness infrastructure.
Strategically, this is a shift from commodity hardware to connected, outcomes-verified platforms. Manufacturers are embedding sensors, analytics, and app-based adherence modules to generate measurable functional gains, which are increasingly necessary for payer coverage and procurement. Recurring revenue through consumables and service contracts is a defining motif, particularly in electrotherapy, creating incentives to build longitudinal data assets that can serve both commercialization and post-market evidence needs. The tension is clear: rising evidence expectations under EU MDR and evolving U.S. device standards favor players with the capacity to run pragmatic and post-market studies, while uneven reimbursement and workforce shortages in physiotherapy constrain real-world utilization that sponsors often rely on for comparator standard-of-care.
For sponsors and CROs, the growth outlook signals more device and software-enabled rehab trials with functional endpoints that are operationally different from drug studies. Expect increased demand for site networks that include physiotherapy and rehabilitation centers, not just hospitals, as well as protocol designs leveraging remote sensors for gait, range-of-motion, and adherence capture. This will pressure vendors to ensure sensor calibration, interoperability with ePRO/RTSM stacks, and standardized data models that stand up to regulatory review. Reimbursement hurdles in developing markets mean site selection will require more attention to coverage nuances, authorization workflows, and patient copays that can suppress enrollment or skew retention. The shortage of trained physiotherapists introduces a throughput constraint for trials relying on supervised sessions, raising the value of telerehab and home-based protocols to mitigate staffing bottlenecks and broaden access.
Regulators and payers are pushing for demonstrable functional improvement, durability, and quality-of-life gains, creating openings for hybrid RWE designs, claims-linked outcomes, and adaptive protocols that integrate home-based therapy. Sponsors entering emerging markets will benefit from pragmatic designs aligned with local care pathways and from partnerships that provide training and device maintenance at scale. Sites should anticipate capital requests for connected equipment and workflow changes to ingest continuous sensor data alongside traditional assessments such as the 6-minute walk, PROMIS, and KOOS.
What to watch next: consolidation that pairs hardware with software and data services, standardization of digital functional endpoints acceptable across regions, and payer pilots that tie coverage to verified outcome trajectories. Risk remains in reimbursement variability, therapist capacity, and data interoperability. The winners will be those who translate hardware adoption into validated, regulator-ready evidence frameworks and can support decentralized, outcomes-driven rehab studies across a fragmented site ecosystem.
Jon Napitupulu is Director of Media Relations at The Clinical Trial Vanguard. Jon, a computer data scientist, focuses on the latest clinical trial industry news and trends.
