Neurostimulation's Billion-Dollar Markets
This article was originally published in Start Up
Executive Summary
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.