Spinal Implant Business – Big and Getting Bigger

Posted on October 29, 2010 at Managed Care Matters by Joe Paduda.

I’ve been tracking the spinal implant business for several years now, watching with interest  and growing dismay as more and more patients have been getting more and more hardware implanted into their backs. Why dismay?  Well, there have been problems with implants corroding, poor outcomes for a number of patients, inconsistent results, and unacceptable infection rates , much of this may be due to a basic problem – not much is known about why spines degenerate, are injured, cause pain, and/or ‘fail’, and thus solutions may well not address underlying problems.

This from the AMA: “The lack of basic science understanding of spine degeneration, such as knowledge about genetics and biochemical and biophysical causes of pain, may be one reason why engineering structural principles alone have not led to success.” Nonetheless, innovation marches forward, at an annual rate of better than 7%.

This from research firm GlobalData’s new report, “Spinal Implants – Global Pipeline Analysis, Opportunity Assessment and Market Forecasts to 2016”.

“The global market for spinal implants is forecast to grow from $6.5 billion in 2009 to about $10.3 billion by 2016, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 7%.

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