Medica or Arab Health: where small device companies actually find distributors.

The two shows, with their numbers

The contrast is old. A 2016 guest piece on MassDevice compared the two directly: Medica had more exhibitors (4,977 that year), while the companies at Arab Health were there for that specific region rather than for contacts from everywhere. Nothing in the 2025 and 2026 figures changes that reading.

Which one, if you can only do one

It depends on where your first three markets are, and you should know that before you book a flight, not after.

Europe, or a broad first pass. Medica. EU distributors and importers of record walk it, and so do distributors from Türkiye, Eastern Europe, Asia and Latin America who come to Düsseldorf because the manufacturers are there. The registry side of Europe is also the best documented part of the Index: 32,557 of its source rows come from EUDAMED, and every EU importer and authorised representative has had to be registered there since 28 May 2026.

The Gulf. Dubai, and go with a national pavilion if your export agency runs one. Enterprise Ireland has run an Irish pavilion at Arab Health since 2013, with 19 Irish companies in 2025. It is where Fleming Medical signed its first Middle East distribution agreement in 2016 and where ACETECH announced a 9.1 million dollar contract with a Saudi trading company in 2025. The pavilion matters because the busy Gulf distributors do not trawl the halls; they are brought to a stand by someone they already know.

The US. Neither. The FDA's establishment register and direct work beat a trade show for the US, and the Index has 25,696 source rows from it.

One thing to hold on to in both halls. The distributor who finds you is usually the wrong one. The good ones are busy with the principals they already carry and spend the show in booked meetings. The show is where you confirm a shortlist, not where you build one.

What the registries can tell you before you fly

The Index is built from the public registries that license importers, distributors, authorised representatives and registration holders: 52,758 establishments across 111 markets in the build of 22 October 2026. It is not an exhibitor list and does not try to be. Medica's exhibitor database disallows crawlers and the Dubai exhibitor list sits under terms that forbid loading it into another database, so both stay out. Use the show's app for the exhibitor side (Medica's Fair Match tool is free for visitors and stays active after the show) and the Index for the licence side.

One honest caveat for Gulf planning. The current build is partial there: Saudi Arabia shows a sample of its register (27 establishments against roughly 12,100 licences), Bahrain's list is dated August 2023, and the UAE ministry's data refused every connection, so the UAE shows only what other registries record. Oman is in with 107 approved suppliers. Read the Gulf counts as a floor.

The checklist

1. Search your device and your three markets. Note the number of licensed establishments in each and the split between importers, authorised representatives and holders. That split is the structure of the market you are walking into.
2. Open each country page. Read who holds the registration in that market, and decide your own position on it before anyone asks. The registration holder question is the one clause an acquirer will price later.
3. Strike the subsidiaries. In the top establishments by size, anything carrying one principal with hundreds of products is a manufacturer's own entity. They cannot sign with you. Keep the names with several principals.
4. Look up every meeting you have already booked. Are they licensed in the market they say they cover? Which roles? How many products and principals sit behind them? A stand and a website are not a licence.
5. Write three questions per name. Who holds the registrations for your current principals. Which principal left most recently, and why. Which of your lines would conflict with theirs.
6. Bring the commercial pack. Transfer price list, the margin stack by segment, territory and exclusivity conditions, and first-year targets. A serious distributor asks for these in the first meeting, and the one who does not is telling you something.
7. Use the show's own matching. Load your interests into Fair Match or the WHX app, then check every match against the Index. Badge data tells you who is interested. The registry tells you who is allowed.
8. Within a week after, verify. Shortlist of five, each checked against the registry record, the principals they carry and one reference from a principal they already represent. Then the agreement, with the holder clause in it.

Do this and the four days become a set of confirmations rather than a search. The search happened at your desk, for free, in an afternoon.