Billion dollar hydration problems: these patient groups are served by BOCAhealth
Source: Gajus-Images – envato.com
More than 500,000 people a year are hospitalized with a hydration problem as the main cause in the United States. The crux of the matter: According to estimates, avoidable hospitalizations for dehydration cost over $ 1 billion annually. The root of the problem lies in the inadequate options for correctly assessing the hydration status.
Disorders of the body fluid balance are a common problem in many clinical situations, especially in chronic diseases such as heart failure or chronic kidney disease (CKD), but also in general in the elderly. It is estimated that 50% of patients admitted to the hospital due to hydration disorders will be discharged with an unsolved fluid problem. And simply because the patient’s actual condition is not correctly assessed.
A non-invasive and accurate method that enables effective monitoring of the hydration status of such patients is currently lacking. An estimated 800 million people in the world live with stage 1 to 5 1 chronic kidney disease and 26 million people with heart failure. In the first step, we focus on hemodialysis patients as a target group because they have a particularly high risk of hydration and nutritional disorders.
The actually addressable market (SAM) comprises 3.2 million dialysis patients worldwide with an estimated volume of € 640 million. The realistically usable market (SOM) in this target group is that of the European and North American hemodialysis patients. This includes almost 1 million patients, spread over 430,000 patients in Europe and 470,000 in the United States. The estimated market volume is € 180 million.
Within Europe, we have the highest level of expertise in the German (80,000 patients) and Italian (45,000 patients) markets, so that these are dealt with in the first place. Europe currently has a market share of around 25% in the global CKD and dialysis market. The European market for dialysis machines is currently estimated at around € 16.2 billion and is expected to reach € 27 billion by 2025 2. Europe has a 20% market share in the cardiovascular equipment market. The European cardiovascular equipment market is currently estimated at over € 7 billion and is expected to grow to € 12.5 billion by 2026 3.
Sales through strong partners
Since BOCAhealth can be easily integrated into existing medical devices due to the system’s interface capability, sales via MedTech groups should be carried out as a package in combination with the existing offer for the target groups. On the one hand, this means that the existing machines can be completely replaced, which would not be desirable for our potential customers, not least for cost reasons. On the other hand, distributors have the opportunity to offer their customers a total solution from one and the same supplier. We are already in advanced discussions with potential distribution partners to implement our strategy.
In a market validation carried out by us in 2018, in which we conducted 50 interviews in various hospitals and dialysis centers, 100% of the operators of the respective institutions showed interest in buying the BOCAhealth system, including approx. 90% with the willingness to do more than usual to pay for a dialysis machine that is already combined with BOCAhealth.