>I suppose the big operations like Kaiser can get overloaded with Bureaucracy and mired in inertia. Yet they make a claim to be big on taking the "evidence based" approach, so if only we could schedule Pleo for an appointment for the Kaiser Oncology Procurement Department, maybe they'd jump on board. But I suspect they would say they want more studies. <
LOL I suspect Pleo would experience about as much success in influencing the Kaiser Oncology Procurement Department as he would by presenting a slide show to the Washington Monument. I think the same tends to be true for BSD M. salesmen, because of the present market conditions (hospitals froze their capital spending due to the recession; a key fact). Buying newly introduced medical equipment normally means it will initially be a money loser, or at least not a satisfactory money maker. And, it can take quite a while for usage to build. Initially, only pioneering doctors will push for availability of such equipment—and some leaders manage to get availability during early investigations, before FDA approval. For the MTX-180, these leaders come to mind (because they have spoken about their experiences, at symposia, for example, and/or have written papers): Dupuy, Dodd, Carlyle. There are others, as I remember – but not their names. These people have been very positive about the performance of the MTX-180 – specifically as compared to the present IO market-leading radiofrequency ablation machines; and even the more direct competitors using microwave ablation in a much less advanced way than the MTX-180. The MTX-180 has features – both basic and handy – that make it a break-through product.
>My instinct remains that the small ablation machine may be the driver of good things. If it gets generally accepted, the other products would get more attention.<
Yes! And, BSD M. management does emphasize this, from time to time (a lot, earlier; and I think the 10Ks still mention the key driver aspect of the MTX-180). The expensive disposables for the MTX-180 mean that the product line is a money-maker *far* beyond the equipment’s purchase price. And, wide acceptance of the MTX-180 is highly probable: Its performance is so outstanding that distributors around the world are signing contracts with BSD M. – despite the tough market conditions from the worldwide recession.
The MTX-180 promises to dominate the IO market arena – presently, as claimed by BSD M., a $2.3 billion/yr IO segment that is growing rapidly. And, I have seen substantially larger numbers; presumably for the overall IO market, not just the heat-ablation portion. In passing, because the MTX-180 is a break-through product, it will not only displace the directly competing radiofrequency machines (now the dominant product) but will also take share from the other IO practices (such as cryoablation, for example).
Note: Market estimates as taken from expensive market reports typically are not specific enough to be satisfactory (might be OK in the reports, but crudely taken in quotes therefrom). In the present case, does the $2.3 billion refer to what the equipment maker gets, the distributor gets, the hospital pays to the distributor, or what the medical insurers pay to the hospitals. And, since there is apt to be much secrecy re pricing, we are not likely to get genuinely informative info re “prices” – not without enforced truth-in-marketing laws! All that said, the disposable antennas have very high profit margins, for sure – and their usage promises to be large-scale; enough IMO to soon make present BSDM look utterly silly. |
