Ministers Pitch Malta to MedTech Investors at Valletta Summit

Lovin Malta, in a sponsored report on the event, said the summit opened at the Mediterranean Conference Centre with founders, investors, clinicians and industry executives in attendance. The report said this year’s edition includes more than 200 partner organisations, over 300 start-ups and more than 250 investors from more than 50 countries.

The government presence was not decorative. Economy minister Silvio Schembri used his address to say medtech and life sciences were central to Malta’s future economic growth and to its ambition to become “a high-value European hub” for investment, research and development. Junior minister Deo Debattista spoke about innovation and ageing well. Deputy prime minister and health minister Ian Borg also addressed delegates, with tourism minister Jo Etienne Abela scheduled later in the day.

That is the part of the story worth separating from the event gloss. Ministers were not just attending an industry conference. They were using office, and the weight that comes with it, to market Malta to companies and investors who may be considering where to expand.

After the speeches, MedTech World chief executive and co-founder Dylan Attard took ministers around the exhibition floor, where they met exhibitors across more than 100 stands. The report said government representatives were introduced both to international companies considering Malta as a base for growth and to Maltese public bodies involved in the sector, including Malta Enterprise, the Malta Digital Innovation Authority and the Malta Medicines Authority.

Attard’s own pitch was blunt enough. Malta, he said, is a practical point of entry into Europe for medtech companies, but “infrastructure alone does not create an ecosystem. People do.” That is a useful correction to the usual summit-pageantry. A conference can convene investors, startups and ministers in one hall. It does not, by itself, settle what companies will find once the banners come down.

The programme described by Lovin Malta ran across four stages, with panels on investment, fundraising, exits, neurotechnology, women’s health and lessons from Nordic and French medtech markets. A surgical track included a live case from St James Hospital and a session on “shaping the surgical story of Malta”. Malta Enterprise hosted a session on growing a medtech business from Malta, and the Malta Digital Innovation Authority also had a keynote slot.

The summit continues the following day with Opposition leader Alex Borg due to address delegates, alongside regulatory sessions led by the Malta Medicines Authority and discussions on surgical robotics and artificial intelligence in medical devices.

What the opening established, on the available report, is that Malta’s government wants to be seen courting the sector in public and at ministerial level. That is a political act as much as a promotional one. The report does not describe any vote, rule change or formal policy decision announced from the stage.