Impact of COVID-19 on Niemann-Pick Disease in Healthcare Industry

OVERVIEW
A novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, appeared in December 2019 in Wuhan, China, spreading much faster than its predecessors and has already infected millions of patients worldwide as of April 19, 2020. As the scope of the current COVID-19 outbreak has reached the proportion of pandemics, significant international efforts in public health are underway to control the epidemic. The covid-19 pandemic majorly impacted the rare diseases patients because, during the pandemic, the need to provide high-level care for a large number of patients with COVID-19 has affected resourcing and limited the routine maintenance of all other conditions. The impact of health emergencies particularly faced by the rare disease communities, organizations, clinics, and other healthcare providers. The health economic challenges faced by patients and their families, institutions, research organizations, and healthcare providers during the pandemic outbreak have demonstrated the importance of ensuring continuity of care in the management of rare diseases, including adequate diagnostics and monitoring protocols, and highlighted the need for a structured emergency strategy.
Niemann-Pick disease is a rare, inherited disease that affects majorly body's ability to metabolize fats such as cholesterol and lipids within the cells. Over time, these cells got malfunctioned and died. The disease can affects the brain, spleen, nerves and, if get severe, may affect lungs, bone marrow, and other organs. The disease can occur at any age but majorly affects children. There is no known cure for the disease, and sometimes it may be fatal for children, the only treatment is focused on helping people live with their symptoms.

STRATEGIC DECISIONS OF GOVERNMENT AND MANUFACTURERS
As such, market participants are involved in the production of drugs, expanding their business through a variety of programs, including collaboration, contracts, and pipeline development, collaboration, and market expansion. It is expected that the strategic decisions of these companies will provide significant opportunities for market participants operating in the Niemann-Pick Disease market.
For instance,
• In July 2020, Abbott announced that it had received FDA approval for the use of the Patient Controller App on compatible personal Apple smartphone devices. The approval will allow the patient living with neurological conditions to manage their therapy directly from personal smartphone.
• In May 2020, Philips, a global leader in health technology, joined forces with the American Telemedicine Association (ATA) to help further the adoption of telehealth across the industry, demonstrating its commitment to connecting care across acute, post-acute, and home care settings. The continued collaboration spotlights telehealth's growing adoption and momentum amidst COVID-19 and the need to convey the exponential shift to telehealth capabilities.
• In U.S., NIH supports the research survey of “CURE EPILEPSY ORGANIZATION” to examine the impact of Covid-19 on Rare Disease Community. The survey includes more than 200 rare diseases including the brain, immune system disorders, heart, lungs, brain development diseases, and more.
IMPACT ON DEMAND
The Coronavirus zone is the result of various markets around the world. This is the cause of the widespread closures and isolation that are affecting world economic activity. As the cases increases in the month of April 2020, the sudden surge in demand has seen, and drugs and medical devices went out of stock.
Moreover, the decrease in the revenue of the key market players depicted in their quarterly results, such as Medtronic, among others, gave the evidence of decline in the demand for medical devices due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For instance,
• Medtronic reported a decline of 1% in its brain therapies net sales of the financial results of 2020 as compared to 2019. The reduction was primarily motivated by the detrimental effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent deferral to companies of medical procedures.
• Impact on rare disease organization also faced significant fundraising income loss, this consequential income loss may leads to loss of various people jobs associated with the organizations. The cutting or income loss leads to the reducing staff, canceling offices leases, and delay or cutting office programs.
The impact of covid-19 majorly impacted the organizations if the revenues loss projections do not change, this will leads to temporarily or permanently shut down of small and middle foundations and organizations.

IMPACT ON SUPPLY
As the epidemic intensifies, supply chains can be at significant risk due to over-located locations that can potentially be disrupted. The supply chain of drugs, devices, and services has been disrupted. The spread of COVID-19 makes it difficult for governments to use these drugs; the availability of these systems faces constant challenges due to their components of use and limited initial needs. Moreover, as there is no cure for the disease, only physical activities/therapies may suppress the symptoms also affected by pandemics.
According to the NORD (National Organization for Rare Disorders), in the U.S. stated that 74% of the population have had canceled medical appointments due to Covid-19 pandemic, 69% of population concerned about their medication and medical supplies.
For instance,
• In June, ResMed stated that, due to the Covid-19 pandemic company sleep apnea business segment adversely affected including sleep clinics, physician practices, HME suppliers. As new patients are prescribed sleep apnea devices such as PAP, CPAP devices for the treatment through hospitals that are directing their resources to critical care, including COVID-19 treatment. The covid 19 impacts may continue to decrease demand for the sleep apnea devices sale

IMPACT ON PRICE
Various market players are facing a large number of challenges due to the coming of the novel coronavirus and different strains; one such issue is the uncertainty surrounding the impact of covid-19 on off label drugs demands. Due to the increased coronavirus cases and continuous lockdown, the costs of the drugs and their APIs increase automatically. On the one side, it will increase the revenue of the companies, but a patient may resist buying the products, which ultimately increases the stress level on the patients.
Moreover, Due to the pandemic, there is the delay associated with various types of limitations faced by the manufacturers to fulfill the end product order, which has resulted in the less availability of medical devices in the market and due to which the cost of available devices has increased with the several factors. Also, due to the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak, manufacturers are forced to find new contract manufacturers and suppliers for more manufacturing activities to different or unique facilities location that are less impacted by the outbreak.
The impact of Covid-19 has created huge price impact on the government as well as on patient families that they have to buy the drugs on higher rate as compared to the average rate.

CONCLUSION
As this pandemic situation has resulted in many restrictions in different places around the world, still the market players of dealing in rare diseases therapy and services were able to manage their service stock. Different companies dealing in metabolic diseases therapy services were finding out their own way to deal with this pandemic situation. The government and companies around the globe are working together and have issued advice for those undergoing therapies centers during these unprecedented times during COVID 19 lockdown around the world.
The supply chain was destroyed, but several steps were taken by the government and companies, which will help them, get their needed output for therapy service. By increasing the material price, the companies can maintain their overall revenue.
Thus, different foundations, organizations,, and services center markets are finding ways to deal with this pandemic situation. Read more….