Advanced Wound Care Products Sector Surges Ahead

The advanced wound care products market will continue to expand over the long term due to an aging population, longer life expectancies, and an increasing number of sicker patients across all care settings. These are the latest findings of Frost & Sullivan (Frost, London, United Kingdom), an international market research firm.

According to the report, patients today have more complex coexisting illnesses such as diabetes, heart failure, obesity, pulmonary and vascular diseases, immobility issues, and chronic wounds. These factors are and will be influenced by future demographic trends, economic uncertainty, the impact of health care reform, increasing numbers of uninsured patients, reimbursement pressures from third party payers, continuing shortage of nurses and physicians, and increasing technology and supply costs.

As a result, the worldwide wound care market reached revenues of almost USD 19 billion in 2013, representing a growth rate of 6% from the previous year, but that growth is uneven; while some products within the worldwide wound care market are mature, such as anti-infectives and pressure relief devices, are slowing in growth rates, other products, such as biological dressings and negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) devices are in the infant stages of development, and are driving market growth.

On the product side, besides the always-improving synthetic dressing materials, newer technologies in wound treatment include the xeno geneic tissue scaffold, bilayered human dermal substitutes, recombinant growth factors, endoscopic subfascial ligation of venous perforators, and endovascular arterial repair techniques. The top wound care companies worldwide include Johnson & Johnson, Kinetic Concepts, Inc. (KCI; San Antonio, TX, USA), Covidien, Hill-Rom (Batesville, IN, USA), and Smith & Nephew, who combined are responsible for more than 50% of the revenues for the total market.

“The wound care industry is an incredibly diverse and highly competitive arena that is ever-changing. New wound care products and devices are entering the market with lightning speed,” said Frost analyst Anne Crandall. “The emerging generation of wound care products and technologies is well-positioned to capitalize on growth.”

According to Kalorama Information, future growth of the worldwide wound care market will depend on ebb and flow in the industry, mitigated by changes in reimbursement, contract bidding, mergers and acquisitions, and changes in the delivery of health care.

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