The global neurostimulation market is projected to increase 13.4% annually from 2017 through 2022 to more than $7.2 billion. Although impressive, this growth will understate the magnitude of the patient populations and clinical applications that will be newly served with the emergence of noninvasive alternatives to expensive neurostimulation implants and the development of new forms of stimulation that will enable less invasive treatment of chronic conditions. It is significant that many of the largest patient populations with chronic conditions are currently treated with drugs, which are marginally successful and frequently have undesirable side effects. New device-based therapies are delivering superior outcomes with virtually no side effects at a reasonable cost. They are also more patient-friendly. Although some of these technologies will emerge only after 2020, biomedical electronic medicine’s focus on the vagus nerve as the “neural highway” for selectively reactivating the body’s native homeostasis mechanism, coupled with continued major developments in neurostimulation tools and techniques, will ensure a sustained pipeline of device-based alternatives to drug therapy and invasive treatments through the next decades.
