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Renal Devices: New Blood Revitalizes Dialysis Industry

CMS pays 33% of its budget for patients with end stage kidney disease, a group that, in terms of patient numbers, accounts for less than 1% of the Medicare population. For all this money spent, mortality rates remain high--the one year mortality rate for patients on hemodialysis stands at 24%, a survival rate that's worse than that of metastatic cancer. In an industry traditionally resistant to change, however, changes are coming, brought about by reimbursement changes and a delivery model that can't scale-up to meet a growing population, making room for new start-ups in the space.

End stage renal disease (ESRD) is an enormous market. There are 550,000 patients in the US on dialysis, and the global figure is two million. That unfortunate statistic will only increase in coming years as co-morbidities like diabetes, heart failure, hypertension, and obesity tax the kidneys and contribute to their downfall. Today, the two leading hemodialysis providers in the US, Fresenius SE & Co. KGAA and DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc., bring in revenues of $11.2 billion and $6.1 billion respectively, so the markets are clearly healthy.

But the patients aren't. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pay $33 billion or 6% of the total Medicare budget each year to treat less than 1% of...

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