Allergan band

[TheGh0st 9]

Small clarification: Allergan is the current parent company of Inamed. Allergan bought them up a year or two ago. As mentioned they have several varieties of band on the market right now.

As far as market share this is what I found from Allergan's first quarter 2008 earnings report:

"The worldwide bariatric surgery market for band and balloon segments only is roughly 320 million, growing at a rate of roughly 50 to 55%, and Allergan has approximately 80 to 85% market share.

And here is a link to the original source:

Allergan, Inc. Q1 2008 Earnings Call Transcript - Seeking Alpha

It did mention that the US market had shown a slight decrease in growth due in part to the introduction of the Realize band as well as a percieved impact of the current economic times possibly causing some self-pay patients to be a bit more reluctant to spend so much cash out of pocket in the US. However the overall market share was unchanged from 2007 (this wasn't stated in the report but I found the 2007 report and the market share numbers were identical.)

As far as which is better. I am no doc or medical professional so I'd rather not give an opinion. Both companies have been making bands for well over a decade (even if not in the US) and have proven track records. I will say that some of the literature being put out by Realize that implies it is "safer" than the Lapband is misleading as it is based on comparing FDA test results between the two. The problem with such a comparison in my opinion is that the docs doing the procedures back when the lapband was being approved were using older procedures at the time and less experienced than the doctors that were part of the more recent Realize FDA trials. Legally, both companies can only refer to the FDA stats on thier literature within the US but those results do not reflect in my opinion the most accurate and uptodate picture of today's procedures.