TORONTO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--According to Millennium Research Group (MRG), the global authority on medical technology market intelligence, a recovering European economy combined with an increasing demand for minimally invasive surgery will lead to significant growth in the European market for surgical navigation systems through 2017.
Constrained capital budgets resulting from government austerity measures have had a significant negative impact on the purchases of replacement surgical navigation systems by European healthcare facilities. Systems have been retained well past their typical seven-year lifespan. As the economy improves, long-overdue replacement system purchases will increase, leading to a spike in unit sales growth in 2013. From flat market growth in 2012, this will help increase market growth to six percent in 2013, with rising growth continuing into 2015 as worse affected economies such as Italy recover.
Surgical navigation improves clinical accuracy, enabling less invasive treatments and limiting physician legal liability. These advantages have been particularly clear in spine navigation, and sales in that segment will see the strongest growth as a result. Nevertheless, continued questions of the clinical benefits of surgical navigation, particularly orthopedic navigation, will exert a brake on sales of these systems.
Another limitation on orthopedic systems is the long-time manufacturer practice of placing orthopedic navigations systems in facilities at no cost as part of an implant purchase contract, to generate implant sales. Such systems are often designed to work with only the manufacturer’s brand of implant. As a result, usage is often low, and hospitals tend not to invest in training for their physicians.
“The practice of placing orthopedic systems at no cost will diminish through 2017,” said MRG Analyst Mickel Phung. “For example, Smith & Nephew and DePuy have stopped directly distributing their own systems and now partner with Brainlab, pairing sales of their implant devices to healthcare facilities with Brainlab's orthopedic navigation system. This mutually beneficial relationship boosts both the implant manufacturer's implant sales and Brainlab's system penetration.”
The European surgical navigation market is dominated by two major players, Medtronic Navigation and Brainlab. While Medtronic has been gaining market share in most of Europe, Brainlab maintains its market lead in its home country of Germany, the biggest national market in Europe for surgical navigation.
Millennium Research Group’s European Markets for Surgical Navigation Systems 2013 report includes unit, installed base, average selling price and revenue information, along with market drivers and limiters and competitive landscape for surgical navigation platforms with neurosurgery, spine, ear, nose and throat (ENT) and orthopedic applications sold in France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe.
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.
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