Will Tracker-Like Aesthetics Lead to Anti-Nausea Device Bonanza?

A Canadian-Chinese medical device manufacturer is poised to enter a niche market for nausea-fighting neurostimulation with a sleek wrist-worn transcutaneous electric nerve stimulation (TENS) device, providing an alternative to a long-established manufacturer that has just released a redesign of its technology.   Peter Ji, co-founder of Vancouver, BC, and Ningbo, China-based WAT Medical Technology, said there is plenty of room in the nascent therapeutic wearables market for both his firm and Horsham, PA-based Reliefband Technologies to thrive in combating motion sickness, morning sickness, post-operative nausea, and a fairly new malady—nausea caused by exposure to virtual reality technology.   "We don't really see Reliefband as a competitor," Ji said. "They've been in the market a lot longer than us. The anti-nausea market is a large one with a lot of potential."   The market may indeed be sizable. However, device-based therapies for it have not proliferated or enjoyed ownership longevity—for instance, Reliefband's technology was invented in the 1990s by a San Diego firm called Woodside Biomedical, which was acquired by Abbott in 2003. The brand was acquired by Chicago-based Neurowave Technologies in 2006; in 2015, with a $5 million investment from PathoCapital, a specialty healthcare fund headed by former Baxter Healthcare and Ovation Pharmaceuticals CEO Wilbur Gantz (now Reliefband's chairman...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Business Source Type: news