Neuromodulation 2016: Competition Heats Up In Spinal Cord Stim Market

The field of neuromodulation has never been hotter. At the North American Neuromodulation Society (NANS) Annual Meeting in Las Vegas in December, attendance was at an all-time high, and the increasing number of clinical trials, new products and potential clinical applications for neuromodulation devices is a testament to the growing interest and excitement about these technologies among clinicians, industry, investors and patients.

Much of the research and news at NANS surrounded the latest advances in spinal cord stimulation (SCS) and today, traditional SCS comprises more than 50% of the $3.2 billion global market for neuromodulation devices. For many years, the market for SCS has been dominated by industry heavy weights Medtronic PLC, Boston Scientific Corp. (BSC), and St. Jude Medical Inc.(SJM). However, competition in this space is heating up as device manufacturers armed with new clinical trial data and next-generation technologies disrupt the status quo of standard tonic SCS systems and begin to expand the market, shift market share and boost the neuromodulation revenues of innovative companies both large and small. Over the next five years, innovation will fuel healthy growth in this market, particularly in the US, where the market is projected to grow from around $1.13 billion in 2014 to almost $1.62 billion in 2019, a CAGR of 7.5% according to a report from Medtech Insight. (See Exhibits 1 and 2