Monitor Your Device Portfolio Registrations Across Global Markets

Registrations expire. Most RA teams track this in a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets don't update automatically, and the cost of a lapsed registration isn't discovered until a distributor calls.

The spreadsheet problem

Registration tracking starts in Excel because it's fast. You build a tab for each market, populate it with registration numbers and expiry dates, and set a calendar reminder to review it quarterly. For a small portfolio in one or two markets, this works adequately.

It starts to break down at scale. The specific failure modes are predictable:

• Key person risk. The RA specialist who maintains the spreadsheet leaves. Their replacement doesn't know where the file is, or finds an outdated version on a shared drive. A registration expires while the team figures out what the correct expiry date was.
• Acquisition complexity. Your company acquires a business with its own registrations in other markets. You now have two registration tracking systems that need to be reconciled. The acquired company's RA team had their own spreadsheet, probably in a different format, referencing different distributor relationships. The merger creates a period of uncertainty about what's actually active.
• Name variant proliferation. The acquired company had registrations under a name that's slightly different from your current branding. Some registrations are under the old parent company name, some under a subsidiary, some under a legacy trade name. The spreadsheet has some of these; it's missing others. You won't know which ones you're missing until something lapses.
• Distributor blind spots. In markets where your local agent holds the registrations — Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand — the registration data exists in the regulator's system under the agent's name, not yours. Your spreadsheet depends on the agent reporting renewals correctly. Some agents are meticulous. Others aren't.

What portfolio monitoring actually requires

Meaningful portfolio monitoring means knowing, at any given time:

• Which products are actively registered in which markets
• Which registrations are within 12 months of expiry (renewal pipeline)
• Which registrations have lapsed and whether lapse was intentional
• Who holds each registration — your entity, a subsidiary, or a third-party agent
• Whether there are registrations you didn't know about — from acquisitions, legacy entities, or distributor filings

The last point is more common than it sounds. Companies regularly discover registrations they didn't know they had when they run a comprehensive search against the official registries. This can happen after an acquisition, after a rebrand, or simply because a local distributor filed a registration years ago and never fully communicated it.

The name variant problem

Company names appear differently across registries — a legal entity name vs. a trade name, an old name from before a rebrand or acquisition, a parent company name vs. a subsidiary. We handle that matching for you, so a portfolio check doesn't depend on you already knowing every name variant your company has ever registered under.

Competitive benchmarking once you know your footprint

Once you have a clear picture of your own portfolio, the natural next step is comparison. How does your footprint compare to your primary competitors? Are there markets where you have strong registration coverage but weak sales — suggesting a distribution problem? Are there markets where competitors are active but you're not — suggesting a market entry opportunity? That's why portfolio monitoring and competitor analysis naturally go together.

Related resources

• Why Your Medical Device Registration Spreadsheet Is Going to Cause a Problem Eventually
• Regulatory Due Diligence: Check Registration Footprints Before M&A
• Competitor Analysis: Track Competitor Registration Footprints