Renal Devices: New Blood Revitalizes Dialysis Industry

CMS pays 33% of its budget for patients with end stage kidney disease, a group that, in terms of patient numbers, accounts for less than 1% of the Medicare population. For all this money spent, mortality rates remain high--the one year mortality rate for patients on hemodialysis stands at 24%, a survival rate that's worse than that of metastatic cancer. In an industry traditionally resistant to change, however, changes are coming, brought about by reimbursement changes and a delivery model that can't scale-up to meet a growing population, making room for new start-ups in the space.