North America Nuclear Medicine Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecast (2021 - 2026)

Market Overview

The North America nuclear medicine market was valued at USD 5,624 million in 2020 and is projected to be worth USD 10,273 million by 2026 registering a CAGR of 10.4%, over the forecast period 2021-2026.

Several general principles have been implemented by government organizations with key goals to reduce disease transmission, preserve healthcare system functioning, protect healthcare workers, and ultimately reduce mortality and morbidity. A new set of regulations for the protection of the staff in the imaging centers and other nuclear facilities were rolled out. In 2020, the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA), has developed guidelines to assist nuclear medicine departments to change operating procedures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 infection among patients, staff, and the public. The guidelines also address the possible shortage of critical thinking radiopharmaceuticals due to air traffic restrictions.

According to Jason J. Naidich’s article ‘Impact of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic on Imaging Case Volumes’, published in May 2020, total imaging volume in the first half of 2020, declined by 12.29% compared with 2019 in New York. Post-COVID-19 emergence revealed a greater decrease (28.10%) in imaging volumes across all patient service locations and modality types. This suggests the nuclear imaging with other imaging techniques had a decrease effecting the market size and trend.

North America Nuclear Imaging Market expected to witness significant growth owing to the technological advancements, rising burden of diseases, and adoption of nuclear medicine in therapeutics as well as diagnostics.

Government initiatives and funding for the development of new techniques are estimated to drive the nuclear medicine market. For instance, In July 2019, a new bill named Medicare Diagnostic Radiopharmaceutical Payment Equity Act of 2019 passed by the government of U.S. The new bill aims to extend access to high-targeted, and more precise treatment and diagnosis of severe neurological diseases, by changing the way of medicare payments for imaging services.

The growing funding for research and developments in the Canada also boost the market growth. For instance, in May 2020, ARTMS Products, a Vancouver based startup raised CAD 26.4 million Series A funding which helps in research and production of radiopharmaceuticals

The technological advancements in the field of imaging have boosted the market growth. Over recent years, scientists, researchers, and technologists have been able to bring hybrid systems in clinical practice, in which two or even more than two standalone diagnostic imaging modalities are combined. There are many technological advancements, like the introduction of time of flight (ToF) and the increasing popularity of hybrid imaging systems, which play an important role in the growth of the market studied.

However, high cost of the diagnostic and therapeutic equipment and procedures have been acting as restraints to the growth of the market studied.

Scope of the report

Nuclear medicine falls under the field of molecular imaging, which involves the use of a very small amount of radioactive material (radiopharmaceuticals) to diagnose and treat disease. In nuclear medicine imaging, the radioisotopes are detected by special types of cameras attached to the computer, which in turn, provide very precise pictures of the area of the body examined. The North America nuclear medicine market is segmented by product type (diagnostics, therapeutics), applications (cardiology, neurology, oncology, and other applications), and geography (United States, Canada, Mexico). The diagnostics segment is further subdivided into (Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), Photon Emission Tomography (PET) ) and the therapeutics segment is further subdivided into (Alpha emitters, Beta emitters, brachytherapy). The report offers the value (in USD million) for the above segments.

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Key Market Trends

Oncology is Expected to Hold the Significant Market Share in the Application Segment

The contagious coronavirus is having a potential economic impact and implications on most of the sectors which also includes the oncology segment. The pandemic has certainly hindered diagnosis and surgeries, and thus, likely to have a negative impact on the segment studied. For instance, as per the survey conducted by Breastcancer.org in 2020, in 534 patients, 31.7% of people who had been diagnosed with breast cancer reported a delay in care; of these people, 22% reported that they had a delay in screening and 9.3% reported a delay in treatment due to COVID-19 in the United States. As a result, more cases of advanced cancers are expected in the upcoming future, due to delayed diagnosis and other issues, such as preventative screening and postponed medical appointments, in coming years.

The rising prevalence of cancers and hospitalized cases linked to oncological diseases are driving the demand for imaging modalities and the use of contrast media. According to the GLOBOCAN in 2020, there were an estimated 2.75 million new cancer cases and around 789,296 deaths due to cancer were reported in North America in 2020.

Furthermore, continuous research is being conducted to determine the use of radioisotopes in the diagnosis of various cancers. The increasing product launches are also boosting the segment growth. For instance, in October, 2020, announced a USD 45 million Series A financing to advance the development of its broad pipeline of targeted radiopharmaceuticals for cancer therapeutics. The increasing funding for cancer nuclear medicine boost the segment growth.

In September, 2020 RadioMedix Inc. and Curium launched the Detectnet a positron emission tomography (PET) agent indicated for the localization of somatostatin receptor positive neuroendocrine tumors (NETs) in adult patients, in the united States. This is likely to fuel the segmental growth over forecast period.

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