Penny-pinching hospitals eager to get more life out of their medical equipment, an aging U.S. populace needing more treatments and a growing installed base for MRI and PET machines will help drive the global medical imaging equipment service industry to $12.35 billion by 2017, according to a new market research teaser.

Global Industry Analysts Inc. said in an announcement last week that the business of repairing and maintaining PET, ultrasound, X-ray, MRI and CT scanners would continue to expand, especially in the Asia-Pacific region, the fastest growing world market, which enjoys a compound annual growth rate of 6.71 percent.

However, the United States is still the largest market, with Europe a "distant second," the company said. For instance, 48 of the 70 companies profiled by the firm are in the U.S., with only 12 in Europe. (Asia also has 12 companies.)

The services business will grow quickest among the original equipment manufacturers, such as the "big five," Philips Healthcare, Siemens Healthcare, GE Healthcare, Toshiba Medical Systems and Hitachi Medical Corp. -- companies which already command a "major" slice of the market when compared with third-party service teams and in-house clinical engineering departments, GIA said.

GIA said service providers are also offering multi-vendor services while trying to pitch themselves as "one-stop" asset management shops, doing everything from staff training to technological assessments, in an effort to make up for falling rates of traditional repairs.

The report, which covers estimates and projections from 2009 through 2017, is "Medical Imaging Equipment Services: A Global Strategic Business Report."

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