ResMed chases cardiac treatment market

Sleep disorder device company ResMed is on track to market its AutoSet CS device for the treatment of patients of cardiac heart failure.

Since the device was approved for limited trials in Europe last year, independent German researchers and others have carried out five different clinical trials, reporting favourable results at the American Thoracic meeting in Atlanta this week.

ResMed's chief financial officer, Adrian Smith, said the company was entering into a new era of treatments for sleep disorder breathing.

"The medical reports show it's no longer a debate," he said. "This is a new medicine for cardiac heart failure patients."

Smith said ResMed's device was unique. "It has smart algorithms that can adjust a patient's breathing patterns on breath-by-breath basis," he said.

ResMed says more than 60 per cent of cardiac heart failure patients have sleep disorders that result from potentially fatal unstable breathing patterns, and that cardiologists will eventually adopt these devices to treat their patients that are not stable.

"We expect the market to grow steadily as awareness grows," Smith said.

Clinical data from five studies presented at the thoracic meeting showed that cardiac heart failure patients treated with the AutoSet CS had normalised breathing patterns and over periods of up to three months, improved cardiac performance and general well-being.

Smith said it was the largest independent clinical data reported about the device, and for ResMed it would mean an easier introduction and market acceptance of the device.

"It should be approved in the US once further clinical trials are completed," he said. But because it was the first of its kind, it would take time to gain approval, he added.

As well as Europe, limited trials are also underway in Sydney and Melbourne.

The AutoSet CS is an adaptive servo-ventillator, a more complex device than ResMed's continuous positive airways pressure (CPAP) devices. CPAP is valued at $US400, whereas the AutoSet CS will cost about $US2500.

UBS Warburg healthcare analyst John Deakin-Bell said that over time it was possible that AutoSet CS would become ResMed's main technology, but it would take time to get there.

After gaining US market approval, he said, the company would need time to persuade cardiologists to prescribe this form of treatment.

"It will take time for cardiologists to accept this type of technology because normally they prescribe drugs for cardiovascular treatment," Deakin-Bell said.

Although other companies had similar machines, Deakin-Bell said, ResMed's technology was ahead of its competition.

But he cautioned that the device would not bring in significant revenue for at least two years, and that in the interim ResMed's existing devices for treatment of obstructive sleep apnoea and heart failure would provide most of the revenue.