It's unfortunate and shocking that only in 2013
Obesity was designated as a chronic disease , and only in 2015 the
insurance companies have decided to offer and cover obesity treatments.
Sadly, US policy makers have not encouraged medical technology
companies to progress and develop treatments as much as the have done
with DOD and energy sectors in the past decade. As a result, in the US,
one in three Americans (over 90 million), struggle with obesity and its
related diseases today.
In the past, insurance providers have time and again denied most of obese patients coverage for potentially life-saving treatments. Today, the insurance companies realize that obesity is the root cause of over 20 chronic conditions, but their take on obesity treatment is very primitive. Insurance companies have forced the medical community to offer one shot treatment which is either a gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy surgery, both involving invasive removal of 80-85% of stomach and displacement of Gi tract. In a progressive country like ours, where we spend billions of tax payer dollars studying the remote planet like PLUTO, little or nothing is done in terms of funding obesity research on medical devices. Medical devices have been proven to be the most effective treatment for tackling obesity.
The federal government needs to offer: Unconditional funding, (NIH
funding process is terribly convoluted, time consuming, the applications
dismissed if there are tiny errors. Private entrepreneurs just don't
want to spend their time, writing grants to get dismissed by a panel of
one track minded academicians who like traditional university like
research) the FEDs need to support young , private, innovative
companies who are struggling to bring a product to market, introduce as a
special obesity fund. If not, offer simple measures to investors like
"unlimited tax write off incentives" for investors investing in obesity
research and innovation activities.
The inactivity of the federal initiative, like the NIH funding ( which in my opinion is very biased to academic researchers), poor regulatory process during 2005-2010, resulted in obesity tech skeletons on the road until recently, we have seen robust/expedited regulatory and FDA approvals. VCs have just begun to look at new obesity technologies with interest, because the obesity market suddenly seems to be a big money making opportunity as is estimated to reach $137 Billion by 2017 according to MDDI article.
The regulators and policy makers need to continue to approve the obesity products expeditiously. Once FDA approved, the products need to have their reimbursement codes respectively.
Intuitively, insurance companies will actually, save money on treatment of other co-morbidities caused by untreated obesity, if the obesity treatments are available to the patients early, even before co-morbidities become chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, strokes & cancer. We all know that all these conditions involve life long expensive treatments and hospital stays . I am not sure, what will it take, to get this message across to insurance companies and the healthcare policy makers, CMS and grant agencies.
The biggest effort has been made by National Obesity Foundation, they have we been fighting for your health care rights, they have created programs offering financial assistance and even free surgery to deserving individuals via the their humanitarian award program.
Despite the challenges, the innovation in obesity treatment is at its peak today. The medical device companies are at the forefront, they are targeting obesity with novel technologies. Unfortunately, many of them are focusing on innovations for gastro-enterologist like the intra-gastric balloon technology like the Orbera balloon from Apollo and DUO balloon from Reshape (both approved by US FDA). Gastro-enterologist are not bariatric surgeons and bariatric surgeons are not trained gastro-enterologist. Also, patients usually seek the help of bariatric/obesity surgeons to get obesity treatment. There needs to be more companies focused on bariatric surgery innovations.
Believe it or not, today, Medtronic-Covidien, Apollo and J&J-Ethicon are the known mid sized to large strategic to offer limited options to bariatric surgeons. However, there are a couple of promising new entrants with compelling technologies targeting bariatric surgeons using laparoscopic approach, one of them is Onciomed's GVS system which imitates gastric sleeve surgery without cutting or removing portions of the stomach or intestines.
Today's article is all about tackling US obesity epidemic and addressing the enormous unmet need. I will continue to write about the world wide epidemic of obesity and diabetes. I cannot emphasize enough, obesity is worlds largest healthcare market. Obesity remains the most undervalued segment, at least for now, it marks a tremendous opportunity for investors both institutional and private.
Lastly, I thought of something corny, I'm no Trump, but, let's make our country healthy again.
Let's treat obesity and help prevent childhood and adult obesity.
In the past, insurance providers have time and again denied most of obese patients coverage for potentially life-saving treatments. Today, the insurance companies realize that obesity is the root cause of over 20 chronic conditions, but their take on obesity treatment is very primitive. Insurance companies have forced the medical community to offer one shot treatment which is either a gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy surgery, both involving invasive removal of 80-85% of stomach and displacement of Gi tract. In a progressive country like ours, where we spend billions of tax payer dollars studying the remote planet like PLUTO, little or nothing is done in terms of funding obesity research on medical devices. Medical devices have been proven to be the most effective treatment for tackling obesity.
The inactivity of the federal initiative, like the NIH funding ( which in my opinion is very biased to academic researchers), poor regulatory process during 2005-2010, resulted in obesity tech skeletons on the road until recently, we have seen robust/expedited regulatory and FDA approvals. VCs have just begun to look at new obesity technologies with interest, because the obesity market suddenly seems to be a big money making opportunity as is estimated to reach $137 Billion by 2017 according to MDDI article.
The regulators and policy makers need to continue to approve the obesity products expeditiously. Once FDA approved, the products need to have their reimbursement codes respectively.
Intuitively, insurance companies will actually, save money on treatment of other co-morbidities caused by untreated obesity, if the obesity treatments are available to the patients early, even before co-morbidities become chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, strokes & cancer. We all know that all these conditions involve life long expensive treatments and hospital stays . I am not sure, what will it take, to get this message across to insurance companies and the healthcare policy makers, CMS and grant agencies.
The biggest effort has been made by National Obesity Foundation, they have we been fighting for your health care rights, they have created programs offering financial assistance and even free surgery to deserving individuals via the their humanitarian award program.
Despite the challenges, the innovation in obesity treatment is at its peak today. The medical device companies are at the forefront, they are targeting obesity with novel technologies. Unfortunately, many of them are focusing on innovations for gastro-enterologist like the intra-gastric balloon technology like the Orbera balloon from Apollo and DUO balloon from Reshape (both approved by US FDA). Gastro-enterologist are not bariatric surgeons and bariatric surgeons are not trained gastro-enterologist. Also, patients usually seek the help of bariatric/obesity surgeons to get obesity treatment. There needs to be more companies focused on bariatric surgery innovations.
Believe it or not, today, Medtronic-Covidien, Apollo and J&J-Ethicon are the known mid sized to large strategic to offer limited options to bariatric surgeons. However, there are a couple of promising new entrants with compelling technologies targeting bariatric surgeons using laparoscopic approach, one of them is Onciomed's GVS system which imitates gastric sleeve surgery without cutting or removing portions of the stomach or intestines.
Today's article is all about tackling US obesity epidemic and addressing the enormous unmet need. I will continue to write about the world wide epidemic of obesity and diabetes. I cannot emphasize enough, obesity is worlds largest healthcare market. Obesity remains the most undervalued segment, at least for now, it marks a tremendous opportunity for investors both institutional and private.
Lastly, I thought of something corny, I'm no Trump, but, let's make our country healthy again.
Let's treat obesity and help prevent childhood and adult obesity.
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