A new market report from MarketsandMarkets, a Dallas-based market research firm, is projecting that the global market for neuromodulation devices is set to grow to $6.8 billion by 2017.
Another report from October estimated that this same market will increase to $7.07 billion in 2018.
Neuromodulation devices, whether implanted or external, treat certain diseases by sending mild electrical pulses and/or drug infusion to a target nerve. The report notes that this is the fastest-growing segment of the broader medical devices sector driven by higher demand for less invasive and minimally invasive alternatives to the treatment of chronic pain, epilepsy, obesity, urinary incontinence and stroke and brain injury among other conditions.
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An aging population together with the rise of age-related diseases like Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and spinal cord injury is fueling the market.
The market is divided into two broad segments: internal neurostimulation, which involves implanting the electrical pulse generator, and external neurostimulation, where the mild electrical pulses are provided from outside the body. The former market is subdivided into the following procedures: spinal cord stimulation, deep brain stimulation, sacral nerve stimulation, vagus nerve stimulation and gastric electrical stimulation.
The external stimulation market is subdivided into transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation.
Some companies who are the dominant players in the neuromodulation field are Medtronic, St. Jude Medical, Cyberonics and Boston Scientific, while some emerging companies are Functional Neurmodulation, which aims to treat Alzheimer’s with deep brain stimulation; MicroTransponder, which is using neurostimulation to treat tinnitus and NeuroSigma, which is targeting a whole host of conditions including epilepsy, post-traumatic stress disorders and obesity.
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A company that has found success in treating incontinence using external neurostimulation is Uroplasty.
