Imaging OEMs still moving plenty of product across all modalities
Perception: The dose wars and the slice wars are so five years ago, and imaging equipment isn’t where the action is anymore, anyway. Everyone is extending life cycles until scanners are about driven into the ground. You want action in radiology? Look to big data, analytics, informatics and other “wonders-of-computing” spheres.
Reality: The global medical imaging equipment market will grow at a robust compound annual growth rate of 5.4% between now and 2019. In hard dollars, that means the market will, less than five years from now, handily top $35 billion. That will represent a $10 billion boomlet in the years since 2012.
The forecast comes from Albany, N.Y.-based Transparency Market Research (TMR), which on April 23 re-released an analysis it originally published two years ago.
A redacted preview of the report sent to ImagingBiz shows nuclear imaging and CT growing the fastest, a development the firm attributes to those modalities’ capability to help accurately diagnose large numbers of diseases, fast.
The oldest imaging modality looks to continue leading the pace overall, with ever-present x-ray systems followed by, in order, ultrasound, MRI, CT and nuke med.
Meanwhile North America continues to lead all land masses in terms of sales, with Asia-Pacific growing the fastest. TMR predicts a growth rate there of more than 7% as markets ride such escalators as “favorable demand-supply gap for diagnostic services and rise in geriatric populations.”
As for the basis of its bullish outlook, the firm cites increasing geriatric populations and healthcare reforms, along with stronger supply chains in emerging markets.
The full report is available for purchase. While it’s not brand new, its re-release this week is coincidentally bookended by an article in Barron’s headlined “Medical Equipment Stocks Are Ready to Break Out.” (That projection is imaging-inclusive, not imaging-specific.)
Dave P. has worked in journalism, marketing and public relations for more than 30 years, frequently concentrating on hospitals, healthcare technology and Catholic communications. He has also specialized in fundraising communications, ghostwriting for CEOs of local, national and global charities, nonprofits and foundations.