Growing Need, Growing Category

Manufacturers of incontinence products are generally optimistic about the future.

For one thing, Americans are living longer than ever before: the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently announced that life expectancy in the U.S. has reached a new high of nearly 78 years. Also, baby boomers, who comprise a significant portion of the country's population, are getting older, the first members of the generation having reached age 60 last year.

“Incidence and consumption of incontinence products increases with age,” notes Sam Martin, associate brand manager for Kimberly-Clark. “With Americans living longer and the influx of baby boomers who are now approaching the age of 60, demand for incontinence products is expected to grow at an annual rate of 5 percent to 10 percent over the next 15 years.”

People are also staying home longer before going into a nursing home, or are choosing home care and other options as alternatives.

A study by the Lewin Group found the number of nursing home residents age 65 and older has dropped by 120,000 since 1999, because seniors are healthier and wealthier; nursing homes have focused on post-acute rehabilitation; there are more widely available alternatives; and states have worked to reduce the number of admissions to nursing homes by steering people away from them at critical times like hospital discharge.

John Moulden, senior vice president, sales, for Dynarex, explains that, “in terms of the long-term care facilities, people are spending more time at home, the more assisted-living type situations, and these are all areas where incontinence care products are important.”

That doesn't mean it's all smooth sailing.

As with other segments of HME, there are two foreboding words for manufacturers and providers of incontinence products: competitive bidding. Though not included in the product categories selected for the first round of the program, manufacturers worry that its future inclusion would drive down price points and squeeze margins for them and their distributors, making it difficult for either to operate.

Not only that, several manufacturers in the market say they are already experiencing very real pressures from low-cost sources that have entered the U.S. market from countries like China, pushing prices down even as the costs of raw materials increase.

Yet on the whole they say, the need for these products is growing, and “home health is where a lot of the growth is going to be coming from for incontinence care products,” states Kendra Nicholson, product manager, Covidien.