Good morning to everyone. I hope the market freak-out this morning has not frightened anyone into thinking the market is taking a leap off a bridge. Then again, maybe we should be frightened. Dr. Doom (Mariel Roubini) is shouting from the rooftop again. Although the interesting aspect about his call for demise is not about Europe, which is the catalyst for today’s sell off; rather it is about the US economy, which kinda irritates me because I spent all that time last week writing about market opportunity in the US economy …
Putting Europe aside, as that seemingly interminable issue will plague the market for some time, let’s go back to looking at market opportunity in the US economy. Despite Dr. Doom’s latest bid to be relevant, I still argue that one can make money in the US economy.
Biosensors use biological material combined with an often portable detector to diagnose disease or pick up pollutants in the environment. The devices now generate annual sales of $13 billion and spawned 6,000 research papers last year.
Who the heck makes these little devices and why are they generating such big sales dollars? I’ll leave the first question for you to deal with, but the second I will address.
As governments around the world struggle with healthcare costs and aging populations, the benefits of technology that can keep patients out of expensive hospital beds and off costly drugs are a big attraction.
So, does the above mean there is a transformation going on in the US healthcare industry? Hold on, I thought that the US healthcare industry was in big trouble because of recent legislation. Could it be that healthcare providers are doing what capitalism asks them to do – adapt or perish? After all, hospitals and the like are “for profit” entities, no?
Healthcare agencies are increasingly decentralizing complex diagnosis and treatment, to local doctors’ offices and even into the home, which helps contain the institutional costs of big centers like hospitals.
Into the home? Does this mean there is a retail market for these new-fangled biosensors?
And capitalism’s tendency to push towards the consumer is encouraging more people to buy health monitoring equipment directly. Only a decade ago, the average consumer would not have had such easy access to a cheap home blood pressure monitor or an electronic in-ear thermometer, for instance.
Wow! Things are changing. The digital revolution is taking biotechnology to a whole other level, and fast, it would appear, and if one has followed this Internet thing, one would know that faster computers for R&D in combination with that economy of scale thing are taking prices down, down, down, which implies that $13 billion market could get a whole lot bigger, yes?
Companies have been quick to exploit the potential of a technology that can detect and track diseases from diabetes to cancer, but demographic changes and economics suggest this market could balloon in years to come.
Dr. Doom, we hear you, as the breathless media loves to promote fellows such as you. Your dark voice creates fear and fear sells, but the reality is, there is a whole lotta opportunistic light beyond the darkness you peddle. Hang in there folks. There is money to be made.
Trade in the day; Invest in your life …
