NORTH AMERICAN MEDICALEditor's Statement
The global IVD market is estimated to have reached $42 billion in 2007 and is expected to grow 6% annually to $56.3 billion by 2012. North America, Europe, and Japan, account for 44%, 30% and 11% of the IVD market, respectively, making up 85% of the total market. By 2012, their portion of the market is expected to decrease to 76%.
IVD Technology is a peer-reviewed journal that publishes articles covering the wide spectrum of in vitro diagnostics. In addition to technical feature articles that discuss the latest cutting edge diagnostics technologies to emerge from the IVD industry, IVD Technology offers in depth coverage and analysis of the latest industry news, examines the latest developments in IVD regulations, and shares the ideas and vision of industry leaders through thought-provoking interviews and op-ed pieces.
A number of world events bode well for the future of diagnostics, such as an aging worldwide population and growing demand for new hospitals in developing countries. Increasing numbers of people between the ages of 45 and 75 in the industrialized world consume more healthcare services such as heart and cancer tests. Accordingly, IVD companies are casting their nets in developing countries where rising incomes and standards of living have sparked a new health consciousness and growing demands for quality medical care.
Other market trends that could have an impact on the IVD industry in the future include the following:
• Research derived from the Human Genome Project is expected to lead to a number of revolutionary therapeutics that will further cut the morbidity and mortality of a number of diseases including diabetes, asthma, autoimmune diseases, and cardiac diseases. The use of genetic factors in evaluating patients at risk for disease is still developing. The link between genes and disease risk provides an ongoing market opportunity for IVD research and product development.
• Remote monitoring of chronically ill patients at home is emerging as a primary strategy to keep individuals out of hospital acute care wards, at home, and out of medical trouble. Considered by many to be the new frontier of healthcare delivery, home telecare promises to provide more needed services more frequently and less expensively. The mission of home monitoring programs is to empower caregivers to better manage chronic conditions while enabling health plans to continuously improve the quality of their services to members and to achieve significant financial savings through better care management.
• As an aging society begins to use more healthcare services, cost efficiency imperatives continue to put pressure on payers, providers, and suppliers. Healthcare organizations have developed strict cost/performance and care guideline directives. One of the ways to achieve such directives is to use medical and financial data to evaluate and prescribe the use of medical devices. IVD manufacturers will have to generate more data, which will be accompanied by the inevitable use of data to evaluate the medical usefulness and necessity of using a specific device. Medical device usage will be based on performance data, contribution to patient outcome, and a cost/benefit analysis.
Richard Park
Editor
IVD Technology magazine
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