See the underrecognized patient populations and hidden areas of the cardiovascular market where earlier intervention can both improve patient care and uncover new growth potential.
Every February, American Heart Month brings renewed attention to cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. Prevention and lifestyle change dominate the conversation, but inside the healthcare system, another challenge persists: many patients are already diagnosed with cardiovascular disease but are untreated or undertreated.
Across care settings, patients encounter delays, missed referrals, and fragmented follow-up. For drug and device companies in the cardiovascular space, these treatment gaps represent both missed clinical opportunities and overlooked commercial potential. Reaching these patients earlier means better care for them and meaningful growth for the companies that make it possible.
Here are four areas where companies can uncover untapped cardiovascular opportunities.
1. Patients diagnosed but never referred to treatment
Many patients with cardiovascular complaints first enter care in primary care offices, urgent care clinics, or emergency departments (EDs). Symptoms such as chest pain or early warning signs are documented, yet escalation to cardiologists doesn’t always follow, even when referral might be appropriate.
Research looking at referral patterns from primary care to cardiology for patients with cardiovascular risk shows low rates of cardiology referral, even among patients with chest pain or high-risk profiles—less than 8% in one cohort study.
Because these patients have not yet received treatment, they are largely invisible in common market-sizing exercises built on intervention data alone, like how many angioplasties, implantable devices, or prescriptions for ACE inhibitors were delivered last year.
Providers who are diagnosing large numbers of these patients but rarely referring them onward highlight where this unmet need exists, and these overlooked pockets represent growth markets where better referral alignment could unlock new volume.
Identifying where cardiovascular therapy adoption is constrained by delivery limitations rather than clinical need allows commercial teams to focus on driving uptake through education or pathway support rather than competing in already-optimized markets.
2. Early disease managed conservatively despite guideline support
Many patients are diagnosed with early signs of cardiovascular disease—elevated risk scores, imaging abnormalities, or early-stage conditions like peripheral artery disease or asymptomatic valve disease—yet remain undertreated. In heart failure specifically, a substantial share of eligible patients don’t receive guideline-directed medical therapy or receive it at doses that are not adjusted to therapeutic levels.
This pattern often extends as heart disease progresses. Even when guidelines recommend earlier procedural or device-based intervention, many patients remain on conservative care pathways due to capacity constraints, shortages of specialists, practice variation, or other factors.
Research also shows persistent disparities in care. Women and racial and ethnic minority patients are less likely to be referred for advanced diagnostic testing or invasive therapies following cardiovascular diagnoses, despite comparable or greater cardiovascular risk, further contributing to undertreatment.
Over time, symptoms advance until intervention becomes unavoidable. At that stage, care shifts from prevention to response, driven by clinical deterioration. These are not low-need populations; they’re patients already on a treatment pathway but not yet receiving care that could meaningfully alter its course.
For drug and device companies, closing this gap starts with identifying providers and care settings managing large cardiovascular populations and enabling earlier, evidence-based adoption to improve patient outcomes while expanding commercial value.
3. Patients lost across fragmented care pathways
Cardiovascular care often spans multiple settings. A patient may receive imaging at one facility, follow up with primary care elsewhere, and see a specialist within an entirely different system. When coordination breaks down, patients can fall out of the treatment pathway, often re-entering care through EDs or urgent care rather than progressing to planned escalation of care.
As a result, health systems with fragmented referral networks may contain populations of treatment-eligible patients whose need is real, but whose care never advances or is not advanced within guideline-driven windows, leaving them commercially invisible. These breakdowns are rarely seen in utilization data alone.
Claims-based patient journey analysis helps fill this gap. By tracking patients across all points of care, it can spot where eligible patients stall or drop out before escalation and quantify the gap between diagnosis, eligibility, and treatment, highlighting unmet demand within populations already engaged with the healthcare system.
4. Displacing competitors in established markets
Even in markets with high therapy adoption, opportunities exist to gain share from incumbent products. Physicians and health systems may already be using certain drugs or devices, but adoption is rarely fixed, and clinical differentiation or workflow improvements can create openings for new entrants to replace existing therapies.
For device companies, this might mean a product that is easier to implant, offers more precise programming, enhances monitoring, or reduces complication rates—advantages that can persuade surgeons to switch, even in established practices. For pharmaceuticals, differentiation may come from improved efficacy, better tolerability, simpler dosing, or combination therapy benefits.
By analyzing utilization patterns and facility performance metrics, life sciences companies can see where competitors are entrenched but vulnerable and target initiatives that shift prescribing or procedural behavior. Unlike markets defined by care gaps, growth comes from moving preference toward superior solutions, turning saturated markets into opportunities for share gain.
Find growth in places others might miss
American Heart Month is a reminder that opportunity isn’t always where you expect it. For companies in the cardiovascular space, the biggest growth potential often lies in markets you have yet to fully see.
A recent case study shows how Definitive Healthcare helped a cardiac imaging company spot previously hidden markets for its device and begin reaching patients who need echocardiography.
Read the full case study or request a demo to see how these insights could apply to your organization.
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