Companion Diagnostics Market Overview
In the coming years, the global companion diagnostics market size is projected to register a considerable growth rate. This is attributed to the growing demand for personalized medicine, wide application areas of companion diagnostics, increasing need for targeted therapy, rising incidences of cancer, discovery of new biomarkers for different conditions, and growing requirement for next-generation sequencing (NGS).
Companion diagnostics offer a set of tools for providing clinical & biological information to the pharmaceutical companies. The diagnostic tests further help physicians in improving the treatment decisions for the patients, which is dependent upon their response to current treatments. The different companion diagnostics technologies are in situ hybridization tests (ISH), polymerase chain reaction tests (PCR), immunohistochemistry (IHC), and others. Among these, the PCR category held the largest companion diagnostics market share in the past due to the availability of PCR kits & reagents and their ease of use.
The different indications for which companion diagnostics is utilized are lung cancer, breast cancer, colorectal cancer, gastric cancer, melanoma, and others. Out of these, the breast cancer category dominated the companion diagnostics market in the past. The Lung cancer category is predicted to grow at a substantial rate in the near future. As per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2016, about 218,229 bronchus and lung cancer incidences were reported in the U.S. By making use of companion diagnostics, the treatment can be tailored keeping in mind the needs of the individual.
The major end users of companion diagnostics are pharmaceutical companies and laboratories. Between these two, the pharmaceutical companies held the larger companion diagnostics market share in the past, primarily due to the wide usage of these tests in the pharmaceutical industry. The companies, in turn, are making use of companion diagnostics because of their rising prominence of drug development and the growing importance of companion diagnostic biomarkers.
Geographically, North America is expected to account for a significant revenue share of the companion diagnostics market in the coming years due to the rising prevalence of chronic diseases and surging geriatric population. In addition to this, the growing disposable income and rising affordability of these tests is also driving the regional market. The Asia-Pacific region is projected to grow at the fastest pace in the near future. This is particularly ascribed to the rising genomic and proteomics research, increasing investments by biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries, and surging incidence of cancer.
Companion Diagnostics Market Dynamics
Drivers
The surging prevalence of cancer across the world is a key driving factor for the companion diagnostics market growth. As per the World Health Organization, cancer was responsible for approximately 9.6 million deaths in 2018, and is the second leading cause of death around the world. Cancer patients need personalized treatment as they react differently to different drugs, and as companion diagnostics offer accurate information regarding the effectiveness and safety of drugs in different groups, it is widely being utilized for the treatment of cancer.
In addition to this, several regulatory agencies, such as the U.S. Food and Drug Association are encouraging the usage of companion diagnostics for the development and utilization of prescribed drugs, which is further driving the market.
Opportunities
The widening scope of companion diagnostics and emergence of new technologies, including NGS, are opening up opportunities for players operating in the companion diagnostics market. NGS is utilized for recognizing unknown genes for microbiome, hereditary diseases, cancer driver genes, and for research and clinical application purposes. Apart from this, detection of fusions and mutations, copy number alterations, microsatellite instability, and tumor mutation burden are also enabled by technologically advanced NGS methods. Such features of companion diagnostics based on genetic testing aid in finding detailed genetic structure of an individual.
Companion Diagnostics Market Competitive Landscape
Some of the key players operating in the global competitive diagnostics market are Agilent Technologies Inc., BioGenex Laboratories Inc, Abbott Laboratories Inc., Danaher Corporation, Beckman Coulter Inc., Myriad Genetics Inc., bioMérieux SA, Qiagen N.V., F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, and General Electric Company.
