In this era of health care reform, critical care medicine remains a strong market for innovative technologies that can improve patient outcomes, shorten ICU stays, and ultimately reduce the overall cost of care. Within this space, one segment that is ripe for innovation is the market for severe sepsis products.Although the last 20 years have seen advances in treatment and a marked increase in the understanding of sepsis and septic shock, severe sepsis remains one of the most significant challenges in critical care today.

Manufacturers of patient monitoring equipment are responding to a challenging hospital environment. They're providing advanced portable and telemetry monitoring systems that enable the continuous monitoring of critically ill patients, regardless of their location within the hospital, and often at a lower cost than could be achieved using traditional bedside systems. Portable and telemetry systems are two of the highest growth segments in the US patient monitoring market, according to Windhover Information/Medtech Insight's recently published report, US Markets for Patient Monitoring Products, which forecasts compound annual growth rates (CAGR) of 8.5% and 13.0%, respectively, in these segments through 2012.

In Vivo analyzed recent public and private device financings to determine the comparative strengths and weaknesses of the various types of device financings, and further broke down the investments by therapeutic categories to examine what areas are hot and which ones are not. We found that the device industry has rebounded from a dismal public market and is showing strength among both public and private investors, resulting in a sector well-positioned for continued growth.

A Reprint--see the article of the same name in In Vivo, May 2008.