Putting the market in focus, particularly the global opportunities for wound closure and its larger role in wound management demands addressing the applications for surgical sealants, glues, hemostasis and anti-adhesion. Given the opportunities that exist globally, few competitors (if any) can seriously focus on, for example, the U.S. or Europe only, since competition in this arena has long since been cross-border.
The total market potential by 2013, driven by procedure volumes, for hemostats, sealants, and glues, addressable by currently available products, nearly $4.5 billion for hemostats and sealants, and more than $1.3 billion for skin wound closure using high-strength glues. The introduction of a high-strength, elastic glue without toxicity concerns would revolutionize the market further and lead to even higher sales potential.
To pursue the opportunities at this scale has demanded that active market players recognize the size of the local market opportunity, the local regulatory and reimbursement demands and local practice patterns. (Note, for example, that fibrin sealants first gained a market foothill in Japan, due to a greater sensitivity there to the stigma of bleeding and a lesser concern, at least compared to the U.S., about blood-borne viral transmission).
The opportunities in U.S. are being pursued aggressively by domestic players, but outside the U.S., there are also major market opportunities. Moreover, these opportunities are not limited to Europe or Japan, as strong distribution systems, stable economies and, most importantly, growing caseload demand in many developing markets are more than enough to drive new business in surgical securement.
Source: MedMarket Diligence, LLC; Report #S175, "Worldwide Surgical Sealants, Glues, Wound Closure and Anti-AdhesionMarkets, 2009-2013."
