Economic Growth In Latin America Fueling Strong Revenue Growth For Interventional Cardiology Devices

TORONTO, May 2, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- According to Millennium Research Group (MRG), the global authority on medical technology market intelligence, favorable demographics and growing economies are the main factors spurring rising revenues in the Latin American interventional cardiology (IC) device market. Economic growth is contributing to increased public reimbursement coverage, which is essential in driving adoption of IC devices, especially more expensive drug-eluting stents (DES) and bioresorbable vascular scaffolds (BVS).

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Unfortunately, reimbursement also has its downsides. In Brazil, public reimbursement for DES is expected to be introduced by mid-2013. As a result, the prices of DES and bare-metal stents (BMS) will be cut significantly as the government pressures manufacturers to lower their prices in order to accommodate government health care budgets. These cuts will have a strong impact in the short term because growth in DES unit sales will not yet be able to offset the price cuts. Because Brazil is the largest market in Latin America, dampened revenues in the country as a result of the price cuts will affect overall market trends.

"Drops in prices will impact short-term revenues," said MRG Analyst Mirel Giugaru. "The silver lining is that lower prices will ultimately improve the affordability of IC devices, which will drive adoption and lead to strong revenue growth in the long term."

Once BVS gain public reimbursement approval around 2016 to 2017, these devices will follow a similar adoption pattern as DES. The premium prices of BVS and lack of long-term clinical data will initially limit their uptake, but as prices decrease drastically to be more in line with the cost of DES as well as public health care budgets, BVS penetration will rise quickly at the expense of DES.  

Unlike other emerging markets, such as China and India, multinational competitors such as Boston Scientific, Abbott Laboratories and Medtronic face very little competition from local competitors in Latin America. As a result, they benefit from less competitive pricing pressure as well as equal footing in terms of approval times and physician loyalty.

Millennium Research Group's Latin American Markets for Interventional Cardiology Devices 2013 report includes unit, procedure, average selling price and revenue information, along with market drivers and limiters and a competitive landscape for coronary stents, percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA) balloon catheters and accessory devices in Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. Supplemental country coverage is also available for Chile, Peru, and Venezuela, as well as in aggregate for the rest of the Latin American countries.

About Millennium Research Group
Millennium Research Group (www.MRG.net), a Decision Resources Group company (www.DecisionResourcesGroup.com), is the global authority on medical technology market intelligence and the leading provider of strategic information to the healthcare sector. The company provides specialized industry expertise through multiclient market research, ongoing Marketrack™ projects, customer loyalty tracking, facility-level procedure forecasting, and customized solutions.

About Decision Resources Group
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SOURCE Millennium Research Group