Medtronic reaches 10 million implantable devices produced in the canton of Vaud

On 5 February 2026, Medtronic, a global medical technology company headquartered in Galway, Ireland, marked the production of ten million implantable devices at its Tolochenaz campus in the canton of Vaud. The milestone coincides with three overlapping anniversaries: 50 years of Medtronic’s presence in Switzerland, 30 years of its Swiss Manufacturing Operations (SMO) in Tolochenaz, and the cumulative device production figure itself. To commemorate the occasion, a leadless pacemaker, the world’s smallest, was implanted at Inselspital, Bern’s University Hospital, by Prof. Andreas Häberlin, an electrophysiologist internationally recognized for his work on leadless pacing technologies.

The Tolochenaz site employs more than 400 people within SMO and produces approximately 2,000 implantable devices per day. This volume corresponds to one in four pacemakers and one in two implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs) manufactured worldwide. Across Switzerland, Medtronic employs over 650 people and its operations account for 0.75% of the country’s total export value, a figure that underscores the site’s structural importance to Swiss industry beyond the life sciences sector alone.

A leadless technology built on a decade of clinical experience

The device at the center of the commemorative procedure represents a significant evolution in cardiac pacing. Unlike conventional systems, the Medtronic leadless pacemaker is implanted directly into the heart, eliminating leads that can be a source of infection or mechanical failure. The device incorporates remote monitoring capabilities and offers a battery life exceeding 15 years. First implanted in December 2013, its latest generation was introduced in Western Europe in early 2024, featuring automated programming algorithms and improved battery performance. More than a decade of clinical experience and published real-world evidence support its safety and performance profile in appropriately selected patients.

Since establishing its Swiss operations in 1976, Medtronic has developed a network of academic and industrial partnerships encompassing EPFL, Biopôle, and Inselspital. The Tolochenaz campus also functions as a clinical education center, welcoming more than 2,000 healthcare professionals for training annually. This integration of high-precision manufacturing, translational research, and professional education illustrates the depth of the medtech ecosystem that Western Switzerland and the canton of Vaud have built over five decades, as well as the region’s continued capacity to anchor long-term investment from major global players in the life sciences.