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Medical device makers have found lucrative opportunities in attacking
debilitating pain and other conditions that drugs have failed to treat,
executives said this week.
From severe depression to aching backs, aging joints and migraine headaches, the
various implantable devices promise solutions for desperate patients whom
medical science has so far been unable to help.
Some of the biggest growth is expected to come in the field of implantable
electrical nerve stimulators, which treat chronic back pain, epilepsy and severe
depression. Executives at the Reuters Health Summit this week also said these
products could one day offer hope to people suffering from obesity, Alzheimer's
disease and a host of other conditions.
"Neuromodulation is about pioneering entirely new uses and indications for
devices," said Cyberonics Inc. Chief Executive Robert "Skip" Cummins. "If you
look at our markets, they are all drug markets."
The company's device for depression in patients who have not improved after at
least four other therapies has been on the market for just three months. The
product, which epilepsy patients also use, works by stimulating the Vagus nerve
leading to the brain.
Paul LaViolette, chief operating officer of Boston Scientific Corp., which sells
a spinal cord stimulation device to treat severe back pain, said the
neuromodulation market has already surpassed $1 billion and could one day rival
the $5 billion-plus cardiac stent business as the technology is adapted to treat
other medical conditions.
"That's an area that has tremendous growth potential because its fundamental
technology platforms can be broadly applied to ... chronic diseases that are
drug-resistant today," he said.
Boston Scientific, a leader in cardiology devices to treat clogged heart
arteries, competes in the neurostimulation sector with Medtronic Inc. and the
smaller Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., which St. Jude Medical Inc. is
acquiring.
LaViolette said the industry is just now exploring a number of diseases that
could benefit from neuromodulation therapy, such as migraine headaches, which
Boston Scientific is focusing on next. "Each of these markets has the potential
to be enormous," he said.
Orthopedic device makers, meanwhile, are competing to develop versions of spinal
implants that would require less-invasive surgery than traditional spine fusion
while preserving the range of motion in a patient's back.
Raymond Elliott, chief executive of Zimmer Holdings Inc., the world's largest
maker of reconstructive joints, said no current drugs can remedy the level of
pain that makes a patient elect to undergo surgery to replace a hip or knee or
repair the spine.
"There is not an alternative solution," Elliott said. "This is not something you
can live with."
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&
storyID=2005-11-10T163459Z_01_FOR059425_RTRIDST_0_ HEALTH-SUMMIT-DEVICES-DC.XML
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