Monday's Mercury News had an excellent feature article written by Steve Johnson on "The Brain Business." It highlights several of the neurotech industry findings found in the report my company recently published on the industry. Here is a bit of the article (see the Mercury News website for more....
NICHE FIELD OF NEUROTECHNOLOGY HOLDS OUT GREAT PROMISE, BUT FIRMS SEEKING TO DEVELOP TREATMENTS TAKE BIG RISKS
By Steve Johnson
Mercury News
The prospect of a billion people nearing the age when they risk brain-related illnesses like Alzheimer's disease or chronic pain is helping fuel a costly scramble by biotechnology firms to find solutions.
The Bay Area has more than 30 companies, out of about 300 worldwide, developing brain-related products for everything from sleep and anxiety disorders to multiple sclerosis and stroke. Much of the focus of ``the brain industry,'' as it is dubbed, is on finding treatments for ailments likely to hit aging baby boomers.
``The demand for better cognitive therapeutics is exploding,'' concluded a study of the brain industry made public this month by NeuroInsights, a San Francisco research firm. ``One quarter of the population will be at high risk for cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease by 2025.''
The report estimated the worldwide revenue for this neurotechnology niche at $100 billion last year, a 13 percent increase from 2003, with the lion's share of that produced by a few established drug companies. As potentially lucrative as the brain business is, however, it's extremely risky, even for the notoriously precarious biotechnology industry.
``There's an incredible market for this stuff, but it's a tough field,'' said Samuel Barondes, director of the Center for Neurobiology and Psychiatry at the University of California-San Francisco.
Most of the niche's newcomers don't have products on the market yet and may not make a profit for years.
....more here (sign in necessary, but worth it)
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