Anesthesia Drugs Market Set To Grow

New products, a growing world population, as well as the aging of that population, are predicted to contribute to the continuing growth of anesthesia drug sales.

A new report by Kalorama Information (New York, NY, USA) claims that trends affecting the future growth of anesthesia drug use include research and development in several promising areas, such as anesthesia reversal, the treatment of depression and sleep disorders, and the growing use of conscious sedation--a procedure that involves sedative drugs that lower the level of consciousness but does not put a patient completely under.

"The availability of sedating drugs, such as fentanyl and Versed, has been a real boon to the industry,” said Kalorama analyst Melissa Elder. "Advancements in the area of conscious sedation have resulted in nearly 70% of surgical procedures being performed in hospital outpatient departments, surgical centers, and doctor's offices, which allow doctors to perform operations ranging from tummy tucks to cardiac catheterizations without the need for general anesthesia or an overnight hospital stay.”

The study suggests that adjunctive therapies--drugs given in the perioperative period to facilitate and/or augment the anesthetic process--will likely represent the largest percentage of growth, primarily due to new developments in the anesthesia reversal market. Kalorama Information expects the anesthesia drugs market to grow to US$4.3 Billion by 2011.

Reversal agents are medications that are given to counteract (reverse) the effects of medications used for anesthesia. Examples of reversal agents include flumazenil, a reversal agent for benzodiazepine anesthetics that are given intravenously; naloxone, which counteracts the effects of intravenous opiates used to relieve pain; and edrophonium, neostigmine, and pyridostigmine, which are used to counteract the effects of certain types of muscle relaxants.


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