With no end in sight for the obesity epidemic, there is a vast and underserved market opportunity for manufacturers developing minimally invasive solutions for obesity that can fill the treatment gap between invasive bariatric surgery and conservative weight loss methods (diet, exercise, and drugs). Despite some high-profile setbacks in the last few years, the market for minimally invasive bariatric devices is gaining steam as several companies have recently launched obesity devices on the US market while others have completed clinical trials and are advancing toward US regulatory approval.

Nearly half of the world’s adult population will be overweight or obese by 2030 and obesity is tied to more than 40 diseases. Enterprising companies are heeding the call with increasingly less invasive weight loss devices, while an amenable regulatory environment means the marketplace will welcome some of these innovations in 2015.

Sales of the company’s new drugs have a lot of growing to do to make up for older products’ declines, but Biogen highlighted signs of strength for new launches in its Q1 report.