Bright Spots in Bioresorbable Stents, Intravascular Imaging and Guidewires, According to Millennium Research Group
January 31, 2013—Toronto—According to Millennium Research Group (MRG), the global authority on medical technology market intelligence, the European interventional cardiology market will barely grow through 2017. Procedure growth will average around one percent per year, while revenue growth will be less than that. The market will be just over $1 billion by 2017. There will be a few bright spots of growth, including bioresorbable stents and intravascular imaging.
The low revenue growth is partly the product of dropping average selling prices, the result of competition by a large number of companies. In addition, European governments will continue to offer lower reimbursements in pursuit of cost reduction. Coronary stents will actually see a significant drop in revenues, averaging four percent per year through 2017.
One area of growth in the stent segment will be in premium-priced bioresorbable stents, which are meant to offer both the safety profile of a bare-metal stent and the clinical benefits of a drug-eluting stent. Currently, Abbott Vascular’s Absorb BVS (bioresorbable scaffold) is the only bioresorbable stent approved for sale in Europe, and its sales are limited by its high price. After 2015, growth will pick up significantly, and competitors, such as BIOTRONIK's DREAMS BVS, will enter the market.
Also supporting market growth is intravascular imaging market, particularly optical coherence tomography (OCT), but also intravascular ultrasound (IVUS). These diagnostic tools allow physicians to assess a lesion more accurately, and have numerous patient benefits. Only St. Jude Medical currently offers an OCT product for sale in Europe, but Volcano has received CE marking for an OCT catheter and is anticipated to launch the product in 2013.
Fractional flow reserve (FFR) guidewires will also see growth.
“The growth of FFR guidewires is spurred by a concern over unnecessary or avoidable stenting” said MRG Analyst Mirel Giugaru. These guidewires assess the difference in blood flow before and after a blockage to assess the severity of the lesion in a way that previous required a lot of guesswork.”
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European Markets for Interventional Cardiology Devices 2013
Includes unit, procedures, average selling price and revenue information, along with market drivers and limiters and competitive landscape coronary stents, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) balloon catheters, accessory devices, intravascular imaging catheters and pressure guidewires and coronary atherectomy devices sold in France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.