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Originally Published IVD Technology July/August 2005
INDUSTRY NEWS
Promising growth prospects
for microarrays
Richard Park
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| Figure 1. The market potential for analytical microchips in the United States, 2004–2014. Source: Kalorama Information (New York City) (click to enlarge). |
While the U.S. microarray market is still at an early stage in its development, it is at the beginning of a rapid growth phase. According to a report recently released by Kalorama Information (New York City) titled “The U.S. Markets in Analytical Chip Technology,” the microarray market is considered to be one of the fastest-growing technology segments during the next 10 years.
From 2004 to 2009, the total analytical microarray market in the United States is expected to increase from $1.4 billion to $5.3 billion at an average annual growth rate of 30.5% (See Figure 1). From 2009 to 2014, the microarray market is projected to grow on average of about 10.6% each year and reach $8.8 billion by 2014. The overall annual growth rate from 2004 to 2014 is expected to be 20.6%.
The report states that the growth in the microarray market is being fueled by the expanded use of microarray technologies in assessing the human genome, and in drug discovery and development. The genomics knowledge that is being produced in the research laboratory is contributing to further market growth in pharmaceutical discovery and development applications. While some microarray technologies are being used for diagnostic testing and testing for cancer treatment and prognosis, they are still at an early stage and not yet a significant contributing factor to the market outside of the research setting.
DNA/gene microarrays account for the largest segment of the analytical microchip market. From 2004 to 2009, the DNA/gene microarray market in the United States is expected to increase from $650 million to $1.3 billion at an average annual growth rate of 20%. From 2009 to 2014, while the annual growth rate is projected to decrease slightly to 14.6%, the gene microarray market is expected to reach $2.25 billion by 2014. For the 2004–2014 period, this market is projected to have an average annual growth rate of 13.3%.
During this period, the average annual growth rate for the DNA/gene microarray market is expected to vary. Between 2005 and 2010, the annual growth rate is projected to decline from 23.1% to 7.7%. This decrease will be due to the emergence of microbiology, protein, and tissue arrays that can provide better data than DNA in specific cases. However, between 2010 and 2014, the annual market growth rate for gene microarrays is expected to increase to 13% by 2014, based on the emergence of new applications for these microarrays.
According to the report, growth in the DNA/gene microarray market is expected to be strong through the end of the decade. This projection is supported by the strong technology base that gene microarrays have. The expansion of this technology in terms of its applications, and improvements relating to more- sensitive instrumentation, increased throughput, and decreased costs per procedure are expected to increase access to gene microarrays and the population of the installed instrument base for performing these assays.
Further growth in the DNA/ gene microarray market will be fueled by the transition to increased clinical applications. The initial clinical applications for this technology are expected to appear in the field of cancer treatment. Such applications include diagnosis of specific genetic alterations in individual tumors that may relate to the progress of the disease, determination of specific genetic alterations that may indicate effective means of treatment, and screening for genetic susceptibility to certain types of cancer.
Additional information about this report can be accessed via the Kalorama Information Web site at www.kaloramainformation.com.
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