Retinal Vein Occlusion: Prevalence is Increasing But Growth is Restricted
Published On: February 2018
What is driving the market growth?
Nowadays, manufacturers are more focused on adapting various business development activities such as mergers and acquisition to strengthen their research and development process, sales network, and to introduce advanced and quality treatment of retinal vein occlusion. For instance, in Jan 2014, Bayer HealthCare and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc. signed an agreement to develop an innovative antibody to the Platelet Derived Growth Factor Receptor Beta (PDGFR-beta) as a potential combination therapy with EYLEA for the wet age-related macular degeneration. Moreover, in Dec 2016, Topcon Medical Systems, Inc. announced the acquisition of 51% shares of Mehra Eyetech Private Limited, a sole distributor of the TOPCON Ophthalmic equipment in India and the partnership strengthened the sales in India. These acquisition help the company to expand their presence in emerging market such as India, China, Brazil, and Russia and improve the research and development process owing to different technologies coming together to create potent treatment options. Most of the companies want to enter the global retinal vein occlusion market and they are looking forward to grab the opportunity to gain profit. However, lack of technical expertise is holding them from introducing effective treatment within short time to the market. Therefore, merger and acquisition help players to come together and create potent treatment options to sustain in the market. With these activities, companies are able to minimize the cost of operation and production, gain the higher competitiveness, financial leverage in achieving administrative benefits, and help in positioning the products.
Where is the market leading to?
Retinal vein occlusion is one of the common causes of vision loss across the globe. It is a vascular disorder of the retina and occurs if the artery or vein get blocked. Retinal vein occlusion is categorized on the basis of the location of occlusion; they are branch retinal vein occlusion (BRVO) and central retinal vein occlusion (CRVO). Retinal vein occlusion is the retinal vascular disease and normally affects older population. Moreover, increasing prevalence of diabetes, atherosclerosis, glaucoma, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma have affected most of the patient population. Additionally, changing lifestyle such as smoking, intake of unhealthy diet leads to obese population, which drive the growth of the global market. According to the report published by Center for Disease Control and Prevention in 2015, around 3.4 million Americans aged over 40 years and older are either blind or visually impaired. Additionally, nearly 14 million Americans aged over 12 years have a visual impairment.
Smoking reduces the blood oxygen level and damages the lining of blood vessels. Therefore, the chance of occurring retinal vein occlusion increase with smoking. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2015, over 1.1 billion people smoke globally. Additionally, the prevalence of tobacco smoking is increasing in the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region and the African Region. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in 2015, around 36.5 million adults were smoking cigarettes and over 16 million Americans had smoking-related diseases.
What is future of retinal vein occlusion disease?
Cost of treatment influences the patient to choose an affordable treatment option from the available treatments. The cost of treatment depends on the duration and type of treatment. However, effective treatment of retinal vein occlusion is expensive, which may hinder the growth of the market in the coming future. Therefore, patients are distracted from availing the treatment. According to a research published by the Pharmaceutical Research Institute (U.S.), the cost of per dose of Eylea is USD 1,850 and it requires frequent intravitreal injection of anti-VEGF agents, which further increases the total cost of the treatment.
Moreover, side effects of the available treatments are hampering the growth of the market. For instance, patients who got treated with these treatments have complained about total vision loss, circles or bubbles in vision. Additionally, governments have become more conscious and have set regulation over the drugs in the market and their clinical stages, which, in turn, have imposed limitations on the players. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the most common side effect of aflibercept drug is a bloodshot eye, eye pain, floating spots, circles or bubbles in a vision, and flashes of light.
What do we think?
As per MRFR analysis, the demand for better treatment is high in the developing nations of the Asia Pacific region such as India, China, and others owing to the changing lifestyle, increasing governments’ support and growing awareness regarding the healthcare. Additionally, increasing prevalence of retinal vein occlusion and huge patient population are likely to boost the growth of the retinal vein occlusion market over the next few years. However, high cost of the available treatment along with major side effects may hamper the market growth to some extent.
