Ann: US Medicare payment for new category 1 code announced, page-18

DZH,

I don’t suggest ACG won’t sell and can’t be successful at all but I just highlight that there seems to be a large disconnect between what they think their science is worth and what their competitors do and if the differences between ACG and the others aren’t different enough to justify ACG’s USD15k price tag, then they will find it harder to grow over the long term as physicians become more aware of the other options available.


Competitors with cBP devices are listed and tested in the following review:

http://eurheartj.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/01/22/eurheartj.eht565

The ACG SphygmoCor was used in this study and the results were not overly flattering as it the device was underestimating pressure in T2 diabetes patients (big patient type to cater to?). Unfortunately I can’t provide more detail as this report is well kept under wraps and I can’t find and open access channel for you all.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26446391

Here is a cut from the discussion part of the document. This is the first study to directly, non-invasively measure Bra-Rad-SBPAmp in patients with T2DM. The novel findings were: (1) Bra-Rad-SBPAmp was significantly lower in patients with T2DM compared with age- and sex-matched non-diabetic controls; (2) the product of brachial mean flow velocity and diameter was inversely and independently related to Bra-Rad-SBPAmp in patients with T2DM; and (3) central SBP was significantly higher in both patients with T2DM and non-diabetic controls when radial pressure waveforms were calibrated using radial, compared with brachial SBP. These findings suggest that compared with nondiabetic controls, patients with T2DM have abnormal upper limb haemodynamics that result in lower Bra-Rad-SBPAmp, but regardless of disease status, Bra-Rad-SBPAmp may lead to underestimation of central SBP by radial tonometry and brachial BP calibration of radial waveforms.

I understand there will some potential contextual issues with taking such a small snapshot so you can take it at face value or not.

Beyond the science part, ACG seem to be doing a little too much up talking and over promising, particularly wit the reimbursement rates which have come in lower than what anyone was reasonably expecting. This is the more off putting part for me.