Aesthetics and Reconstructive Surgery: A Market in Transformation

Aesthetic and reconstructive surgery has been undergoing a transformation over the past ten years. A wide range of forces are changing the dynamics of clinical practice and the market for products used. The drivers and limiters behind this have been and, to some degree, will continue to be:

Aesthetic and reconstructive surgery has been undergoing a transformation over the past ten years. A wide range of forces are changing the dynamics of clinical practice and the market for products used. The drivers and limiters behind this have been and, to some degree, will continue to be:

• Aesthetic or purely cosmetic procedures are growing among all demographics (male/female, old/young).
• The economic hits of the 2008 recession were severe, especially for aesthetics, but have begun to be replaced by new procedure volumes.
• Aesthetics have become a more complex clinical practice employing surgery, a wide range of implant types and materials, topicals and physician driven procedures.
• Reconstructive medicine has advanced through developments in autologous tissue engineering, extracellular matrices, and other technologies that address bone defects and other orthomusucloskeletal problems.
• The advances in reconstructive medicine have begun to trickle-down to aesthetic procedures, stimulating increasingly volume of cosmetic procedures paid out-of-pocket.

There has been a series of shifts in aesthetics/reconstruction procedure volumes commensurate with these and other forces. The result is a wide swing in procedure volumes over the past decade, much of which is expected to continue. See the table below.

Percent Change in Aesthetic/Reconstructive Procedures, 2002 to 2012

Source: MedMarket Diligence, LLC; Report #S710.

Other forces behind transformation in aesthetics and reconstruction are fundamental advances in cell biology, continued progress in biomaterials development, advances in wound sealants, glues and wound closure, and others.

The topics in this post are the subject of the comprehensive MedMarket Diligence report, “Global Markets for Products and Technologies in Aesthetic and Reconstructive Surgery, 2013-2018.” See link for further details.