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Medical devices fill void where drugs fail


Medical device makers have found lucrative opportunities in attacking debilitating pain and other conditions that drugs have failed to treat, executives said this week.

From severe depression to aching backs, aging joints and migraine headaches, the various implantable devices promise solutions for desperate patients whom medical science has so far been unable to help.

Some of the biggest growth is expected to come in the field of implantable electrical nerve stimulators, which treat chronic back pain, epilepsy and severe depression. Executives at the Reuters Health Summit this week also said these products could one day offer hope to people suffering from obesity, Alzheimer's disease and a host of other conditions.

"Neuromodulation is about pioneering entirely new uses and indications for devices," said Cyberonics Inc. Chief Executive Robert "Skip" Cummins. "If you look at our markets, they are all drug markets."

The company's device for depression in patients who have not improved after at least four other therapies has been on the market for just three months. The product, which epilepsy patients also use, works by stimulating the Vagus nerve leading to the brain.

Paul LaViolette, chief operating officer of Boston Scientific Corp., which sells a spinal cord stimulation device to treat severe back pain, said the neuromodulation market has already surpassed $1 billion and could one day rival the $5 billion-plus cardiac stent business as the technology is adapted to treat other medical conditions.

"That's an area that has tremendous growth potential because its fundamental technology platforms can be broadly applied to ... chronic diseases that are drug-resistant today," he said.

Boston Scientific, a leader in cardiology devices to treat clogged heart arteries, competes in the neurostimulation sector with Medtronic Inc. and the smaller Advanced Neuromodulation Systems Inc., which St. Jude Medical Inc. is acquiring.

LaViolette said the industry is just now exploring a number of diseases that could benefit from neuromodulation therapy, such as migraine headaches, which Boston Scientific is focusing on next. "Each of these markets has the potential to be enormous," he said.

Orthopedic device makers, meanwhile, are competing to develop versions of spinal implants that would require less-invasive surgery than traditional spine fusion while preserving the range of motion in a patient's back.

Raymond Elliott, chief executive of Zimmer Holdings Inc., the world's largest maker of reconstructive joints, said no current drugs can remedy the level of pain that makes a patient elect to undergo surgery to replace a hip or knee or repair the spine.

"There is not an alternative solution," Elliott said. "This is not something you can live with."

http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=healthNews&
storyID=2005-11-10T163459Z_01_FOR059425_RTRIDST_0_ HEALTH-SUMMIT-DEVICES-DC.XML

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