Medtrode Inc.
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
The founders of Medtrode Inc. thus see a wide audience for a technology that could enable new clinical applications of neurostimulation, by improving upon the deliverability of therapy, and the manufacturing of deep brain stimulation devices. As is often the case in medical innovations, the impetus for the company's formation was a clinician who was frustrated with the state-of-the art neurostimulation technology.
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Neurostimulation Market Expanding
According to Medtech Insight’s recently published report, US Markets for Neurostimulation Products, the frontier for neural stimulation is expanding rapidly, representing a $628 million market in 2006 that is forecast to grow by over 20% each year to produce sales approaching $2 billion in 2012. Topics discussed include implantable pulse generators, device reimbursement, and current and emerging applications for neurostimulation.
US Markets for Neurostimulation Products
According to "US Markets for Neurostimulation Products," a report published in November 2006 by the Medtech Insight division of Windhover Information Inc., neurostimulation devices have the potential to address several clinical applications in which patient populations number in the millions: chronic pain affects five million people in the US; chronic depression four million, and chronic migraine headache two million. Based on projects currently in development, Medtech Insight lists 18 separate clinical indications for neurostimulation, from Alzheimer's disease to sleep apnea.
Neurostimulation's Billion-Dollar Markets
Beyond the functional stimulation of muscles to get them moving, electrical stimulation can also operate on blood vessels, membranes, and receptors-targets in the body once regarded as the domain of pharmaceuticals. Indeed, driving sales of $2 billion in the neurostimulation industry in 2005 and growth rates of almost 20% going forward, are large-market clinical indications that haven't been well-served by drugs: pain, epilepsy, depression, stroke, urinary incontinence, Parkinson's disease, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. For some of these disorders, chronic neurostimulation-of the deep brain, the spinal cord, the vagus and other nerves-promises site-specific, side-effect free and reversible therapies that have the potential to be efficacious where drugs can't.