Covid-19 Impacts Radiopharmaceutical Market

With the outbreak of the pandemic COVID-19 in December 2019, the virus has spread globally in more than 100 countries and the World Health Organization has declared it a public health emergency. According to the World Health Organization, as of 8 November 2020, there have been 49,578,590 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 1,245,717 deaths globally.

The coronavirus pandemic has negatively impacted the development, production, and supply of nuclear medicines and also affected the growth of the radiopharmaceutical businesses of various companies worldwide, as the COVID-19 pandemic has led to lockdown in several countries, across the world. This lockdown led to the closure of industrial establishments, except for the manufacturing of essential commodities, and disruption in the supply chain of radiopharmaceuticals and kits for diagnostic and therapeutic use.

Several cancer research institutes and oncologists in major countries such as the U.S., Canada, and other low-and-middle-income countries, which are largely dependent on radioisotope suppliers, have faced issues related to radiopharmaceutical supply and difficulty in access to therapeutic tracers such as 123I, 123I-MIBG, and 131I-MIBG. This is because of the cost and transportation issues faced by suppliers and distributors. In addition, nuclear medicine manufacturers also face issues in obtaining cold kits, which are used to simplify radiopharmaceutical production.

The nuclear medicine specialty is facing several challenges owing to COVID-19 such as

Disruption in supplies of radioactive materials and radiopharmaceuticals

Most radiopharmaceuticals, non-radioactive raw materials, cold kits, etc are imported from other countries. Local production of these radio-pharmaceuticals is still at a nascent stage, despite a big indigenous market. Due to the disruption of international air travel, there was the unavailability of these medical consumables.

Short-term expiry of most radioactive products: Due to short half-lives and short expiry of these products, any nuclear medicine department is unable to stock them for later use.

Lockdown affecting patient numbers: The nuclear medicine departments have seen a huge dip in patient footfall in COVID-19 times. One of the major reasons for this was a disruption in patient movement and transport facilities. India is one of the major hubs of medical tourism. Due to the complete stoppage of international air travel, medical tourism has been badly affected.

Dwindling private investment: Setting up a new nuclear medicine department requires a huge investment. This comprises the cost of land, PET CT, SPECT CT scanners, and other allied equipment. Private investment in this branch showed an upward spiral in the last decade. Hence, multiple new stand-alone and hospital-based private nuclear medicine centers mushroomed in tier I, II, and III cities. However, with the economy taking a hit, future investments may be withheld or postponed till the recovery happens.

In April 2020, IAEA guidelines for nuclear medicine departments were also published in the European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging. These guidelines aim to help nuclear medicine departments adapt operating procedures to minimize the risk of COVID-19 infections among patients, staff, and the public. 

Several opportunities are also generated with increasing challenges due to COVID-19 such as

In India, as previously mentioned that a bulk of radiopharmaceutical and non-radioactive consumables are imported from the west, and there is an increasing need for self-reliance for these products to tide over such uncertainties in the future. Atmanirbhar Bharat policy by the Government of India has mentioned priority status for local radio-pharmaceutical production. Local manufacturing is expected to get a boost with increasing investments and the public-private partnership (PPP) model. There is a huge demand for local production of high-quality radionuclide generators, Iodine131, Lutetium, Yttrium therapies, and high-quality cold kits.   

Local production of medical equipment is a core area for the Atmanirbhar Bharat program, considering the large market for such products. Currently, all major players have production units of CT, PET CT, and SPECT CT scanners, and their components outside India. It is expected that in near future, this equipment will be completely or partially manufactured in India.

COVID-19 testing will become a norm in hospitals before procedures and surgeries. In near future, we see increased availability of rapid kits for COVID-19 testing before routine procedures like PET CT.

The software will be sought for managing patient appointments, sending messages, remote reporting of scans, and remote access to scanner console, PACS, HIS, etc. Alarms for social distancing may be a norm shortly. There will be increasing demand for techniques for rapid disinfection of PET CT and SPECT CT scanner gantries, rooms, and other patient areas in the department.

About Us:

DataM Intelligence was incorporated in the early weeks of 2017 as a Market Research and Consulting firm with just two people on board. Within less than a year, we have secured more than 100 unique customers from established organizations all over the world.

For more information:

Sai Kiran

Sales Manager at DataM Intelligence

Email: [email protected]

Tel: +1 877 441 4866

Website: www.datamintelligence.com