What will the world be like when the sleeper awakes in 2018?
I am sometimes amused by the science of futurology. This is, as the name suggests, the willingness of experts to predict what will happen in the future by applying probabilities and other scientific methods. Basically, it is extrapolation from the current state of affairs and, as such, much beloved of those who engage in the “art” of marketing. Indeed, the most recent data on the number of prescriptions for ambien continues a trend of upward demand. To understand the market, we need to factor in two other factors:
- people are growing more aware of the treatments for “insomnia” which will drive further market growth for sleeping medications, and the pharmaceutical companies are investing in research and development to produce new products for the sleep disorders market.
This second point requires clarification. Never one to skimp, the medical profession has identified some eighty different sleep disorders. Such exuberance is extraordinary to describe a condition in which people cannot get to sleep or sleep for very long. But, of course, that is only insomnia. When we get started on the other disorders, we include narcolepsy (involuntary sleep), sleep apnoea (brief periods when you stop breathing while asleep), bruxism (grinding your teeth while asleep), night terrors, and so on. On the basis of current medical research, it is estimated that some 200m people around the world may be affected by sleep disorders. If that is the case, pharmaceutical companies working in the sleep field have only just begun to scratch the surface of the total market. As the public become more aware of the range of these disorders and of the existing and pending treatments, demand should continue to grow. For the insomnia market, the focus remains on the existing medications with the fewest side effects, i.e. the benzodiazepines and nonbenzodiazepine hypnotics such as ambien. But even that market is likely to continue growing because:
- US government is relaxing their advertising rules to allow the direct marketing of prescription medications to the general public;
- more pharmacies are coming online and they are likely to boost the market because no prescription is required;
- new technologies will allow new products to emerge.
As it stands, ambien is the brand to beat for insomnia. Which new medications will emerge to treat the other sleep disorders is difficult to predict.