Europe's Contrast Media Market to Reach $915 Million in 2008

Mediocre performance, sluggish growth, and a maturing market have affected Europe's contrast media industry, estimated at US$684 million in 2001, according to a new study by Frost & Sullivan (London, UK), the international marketing consulting company.

However, medical institutions are increasing imaging equipment installations that will continue to require the use of contrast media for imaging. Moreover, the growing number of these installations will increase patient throughput and the number of procedures performed. These factors will help push sales in the overall European contrast media market to $915 million in 2008, say Frost & Sullivan analysts. The star performer in the contrast media arena is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), whose rising popularity as a reliable imaging tool is stimulating innovation and will prompt the launch of new MRI contrast agents.

Aiding this development is the defection from conventional x-ray modality, which will also have a favorable effect on computed tomography (CT) contrast media. However, MRI and ultrasound will be encroaching on the use of CT/x-ray, reducing their sector's share to 60.7% of the market in 2008. The price-sensitive nature of the market, caused by price erosion and saturation of the x-ray segment, is curtailing growth.

The contrast media industry's fortunes are linked to the performance of the medical imaging equipment market. "The penetration of medical imaging equipment will fuel demand for contrasting agents. Since many parts of Europe remain untapped by the imaging equipment industry, there are significant opportunities for increasing the installed base,” noted Sumit Sharma, research analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

CT has experienced the highest volume of procedures using contrast agents. Almost 12.2 million CT procedures were performed in Europe in 2001. Contributing to market saturation is the fact that some new imaging technologies completely minimize the use of contrast agents. Frost & Sullivan believes there will be a closer working environment between the contrast media industry and the imaging equipment industry in order to develop new contrast agents complementary to new technology-driven imaging equipment.




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