Article preview reprinted from Start-Up - September 2008
Investor interest in the urology space waxes and wanes; it's attractive because as a niche specialty it has some pretty big patient populations. Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), the benign enlargement of the prostate over time, affects 90% of men by the time they're 80, and half of men at age 60.
Article preview reprinted from Start-Up - September 2008
European Markets for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Therapies
Investor interest in the urology space waxes and wanes; it's attractive because as a niche specialty it has some pretty big patient populations. Benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH), the benign enlargement of the prostate over time, affects 90% of men by the time they're 80, and half of men at age 60. In Europe, according to European Markets for Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia Drugs, Devices, and Therapies, a report recently published by FDC-Windhover Information's Medtech Insight division, that's 28 million men. But urology goes out of favor from time to time because so many drugs and device therapies that initially looked promising failed to address the majority of BPH sufferers, or worse, caused side effects in a very sensitive part of the body. This cycle of excitement and disappointment goes all the way back to the introduction of Merck & Co. Inc.'s finasteride (Proscar) in the early 1990s, which, far from becoming a multibillion-dollar blockbuster as it was fted, ended up helping only half of the patients who took it.
There are signs that interest in BPH is picking up though, in both the device and pharmaceutical segments. Start-ups continue to find financing; for example, the past few months saw the successful start-up financing of Vantia Ltd. in the UK, which raised $38 million to advance a vasopressin agonist for BPH, and in August 2008, HealthTronics Inc. made an unsolicited $27 million bid for Endocare Inc., developer of a minimally invasive cryoablation platform for BPH.
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Companies mentioned in this article:
Endocare Inc. HealthTronics Inc
Merck & Co.
Vantia Ltd
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