European Markets for Arrhythmia Management Products

Cardiac rhythm disorders remain a burdensome public health problem in Europe despite a growing understanding of the nature of benign and malignant arrhythmias. Chronic arrhythmias, or pacing disorders, afflict close to 5 million people in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom (U.K.), accounting for about 20% of all chronic conditions treated by cardiologists. Yearly, arrhythmic disease claims almost 400,000 lives in these countries, causes over 1.2 million hospitalizations, and costs up to $30 billion in combined healthcare spending.

A significant portion of these expenditures is associated with direct clinical management of chronic cardiac rhythm disorders, involving such diagnostic and therapeutic modalities as transcatheter electrophysiology (EP) studies, radiofrequency (RF) ablation, permanent implantation of pacemakers, cardioverter defibrillators and congestive heart failure (CHF)-targeting ventricular resynchronization devices, as well as cardiopulmonary resuscitation with external defibrillators. In 1999, these modalities were employed in more than 683,000 elective and emergency arrhythmia management procedures in the countries
covered by this report, generating close to $914 million in corresponding product sales. Usage of these arrhythmia management methods mentioned and techniques is forecast to expand 2.9% annually to approximately 790,000 procedures in the year 2005.
Combined revenues from the sales of implantable cardioverter defibrillation (ICD) devices, CHF-targeting cardiac stimulators, external defibrillation products, and EP catheters are forecast to increase at a compound annual growth rate of 6.6% to almost $1,381 million in the year 2005.

The largest gains in the market are anticipated in CHF-targeting ventricular resynchronization therapy (VRT) devices and ICD products, including novel systems for management of atrial fibrillation (AF). A healthy growth rate is also expected in advanced
EP catheter products intended for treatment of complex atrial and ventricular tachyarrhythmias (VTs). Advances in the largest