In 2014, approximately 33.7 thousand Cerebral Thrombectomy Procedures were performed worldwide, of which United States and largest European states accounted for roughly 46% and 37%, largest Asian states contributed 10.4% and the rest of the world added remaining 6.5%.
The 2014 global Cerebral Thrombectomy system sales were estimated at approximately $166 million, of which the United States accounted for about $79.1 million (or ~47.7%), followed by the largest Western European states with $59.4 million (or 35.8%), major Asian states with $17 million (or 10.2%) and the rest-of-the-world with $10.5 million (or 6.3% of the total).
In the view of the industry insiders and practicing neurointerventional radiologists, relatively modest volume of life-saving Cerebral thrombectomy procedures and corresponding product sales appear to reflect still insufficient body of favorable clinical data and inhibiting impact of the published dubious findings from the major IMS-III study.
The latter compared first-generation cerebral thrombectomy techniques with standard medical (and tPA) therapy and asserted that endovascular clot retrieval interventions did not result in visible improvement in patient outcomes. The cited conclusions clearly contradict results of numerous randomized trials with available second-generation cerebral revascularization systems, which appear to documented superiority of the latter system in management of acute ischemic stroke caseloads.
It is generally assumed that the situation with end-user adoption is likely to improve dramatically in two-three years from now, when results of the ongoing major U.S. and international trials with novel cerebral thrombectomy devices become available.
Based on these assumptions, the cumulative worldwide volume of cerebral thrombectomy procedures is projected to experience accelerated growth to the end of the forecast period resulting in 10.8% overall average annual expansion of corresponding interventions in the forthcoming five years to an estimated 56.2 thousand total procedures worldwide in 2019.
The worldwide market for cerebral clot retrieval systems is forecast to grow at a slightly slower pace expanding on average 10.1% per annum to about $268.4 million in the year 2019. Price pressure will keep sales growth lower than procedure volume gains.
The largest absolute dollar gains can be expected in the U.S. market (which is projected to add $55.9 million in corresponding device revenues), followed by the West European marketplace (+ $30.6 million), major Asian state business (+ $11.2 million) and the rest-of-the-world (+ $4.7 million).
