Conference Report: London Breast Meeting 2018

Today we’re introducing a new feature: Conference Reports from our own Senior Advisor Dick Emmitt. Dick just returned from the London Breast Meeting, which focuses on aesthetic and reconstructive breast surgery. Here is a summary of the event and his takeaways.

Conference: London Breast Meeting (September 5-8, 2018)

Venue: Royal College of Physicians, London, England

Focus: “Common Problems in Aesthetic and Reconstructive Breast Surgery”

Attendees: European Plastic Surgeons (300)

Commercial Sponsors: 25

Clinical Take-Homes:

  • Implant-based reconstruction utilization increasing, but still behind US rate (60% to 70% of all mastectomies)
  • Pre-pectoral direct-to-implant (D-to-I) trend accelerating due to less trauma, faster recovery and avoidance of “animation deformity”
  • Pre-pec procedures are predominantly utilizing acellular dermal matrix (ADM) versus autograft tissue to prepare/create implant pocket
  • Mastopexy (breast lift without implants) is one of the fastest-growing aesthetic surgical procedures due to popularity with baby-boomers interested in   aesthetic benefit without perceived implant risk or stigma

Market Take-Homes:

  • OUS breast implant market is becoming more fragmented, with Allergan losing share (Q2 sales down 5%) to several OUS-only implant companies, including Establishment Laboratories (now public and conducting PMA study); Polytech (Germany); GC Aesthetics (Ireland); and Stebbin Groupe (France)
  • US breast implant market is strong and still dominated by Allergan (Q2 sales up 24% with limited competition from Mentor/J&J and Sientra (still supply restricted)
  • Allergan’s Alloderm ADM is a big beneficiary of the D-to-I trend in the US (Q2 sales up 26.6% at annualized rate of $400 million plus); Alloderm sales are now bigger than Allergan’s breast implant sales
  • Resistance to allo materials has limited Alloderm OUS sales adoption and created a major OUS opportunity for xeno ADMs and/or resorbable/regenerative synthetics; current leaders are Integra (Surgimend); Allergan (Artia and Strattice); and Italian company Decomed (Braxon)
  • Mastopexy procedure growth is a possible major growth opportunity for synthetic support devices (Novus Scientific’s TIGR Matrix; pfm medical’s TiLOOP; and Galatea/Tepha’s GalaFLEX

Stay tuned for future reports from medtech industry conferences!