Breath of Fresh Air

Manufacturers in the asthma market are breathing easy this spring, keeping their end-users out of the emergency room with new medications and easy-to-use devices. “There's no end in sight” for growth in this market, says Darren Friedman, owner of Breathe Right Pharmacy.

“All your demographics point to growth,” says Craig Bright, president of Med Quip, a new player attracted by the “fairly wide-open market.”

Industry experts offer various explanations for this growth. “We're giving more to each patient,” Friedman says.

But Rob Lee, director of marketing for Pari Respiratory, says the two forces driving the asthma market are “an aging population, predisposed to asthma and other respiratory ailments, and age indication for pediatrics.” Younger patients are being diagnosed more quickly, he says, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared age-indication down to 2 years old, thus expanding the market's patient base.

According to Rich Kocinski, vice president and general manager of Sunrise Medical's DiVilbiss Respiratory Group, half of the patient base for the asthma market typically is pediatrics under 10 years old, and half is patients over the age of 55.

“With a disease state growing at 6 to 8 percent a year, it's a good, attractive market for us and the dealers. You ultimately have a patient base that's going to be served,” Kocinski says.

Manufacturers describe the asthma market as solid and strong, especially when it comes to asthma medication. “The market is growing at 12 to 18 percent, depending on whose numbers you use,” according to John Snobarger, vice president of sales for Ferraris Medical. “There has been enormous growth in the number of people getting asthma and asthma-related symptoms, and drugs [in this market] continue to grow.”

The combining of two asthma drugs into one daily dose and one dispenser is a trend helping to fuel that growth. According to Richard Bulich, president of Pharmaceutical Buyers, Inc., or PBI, the asthma market during the past two years has seen “a resurgence of combinations of two drugs that synergize each other. This has opened the market to people who can now use the drugs with fewer side effects.”

“Patients want one simple, easy-to-use device,” Lee says, noting that the combined-medication inhalers have been especially effective for pediatrics. “This is not a rescue medication. It is preventive, and doctors like it because it prevents emergency room visits and 2 a.m. calls. It keeps health care costs down.”