High rates of tobacco consumption in China and Japan may lead to a larger demand for cardiovascular devices. China and Japan are the two largest consumers of tobacco products in the world. This causes the rates of cardiovascular disease and the demand for cardiac, pulmonary and diagnostic devices to increase. In fact, higher rates of cardiovascular disease in China will be one of the factors that help its medical device market grow significantly.
Japan has a heart transplant rate that is much lower than the global average. Japanese cardiac patients rely mostly on cardiac devices. These include heart valves, ventricular assist devices (VADs), on-pump coronary artery bypass (ONCAB) devices and endoscopic vessel harvesting (EVH) devices. As for heart valves, more and more Japanese doctors are using tissue heart valves instead of mechanical heart valves. This is because tissue heart valves have higher biocompatibility. They may even have higher sales than mechanical heart valves in Japan in the future.
On the other hand, the VAD segment will witness a double-digit growth in Japan. This makes it the fastest growing among all cardiac devices in Japan. Overall in the Asia-Pacific region, the use of VADs is expected to grow at 10% through 2018.