Market Overview
Human milk oligosaccharides are unconjugated complex carbohydrates which are found abundantly in human milk. It is the third most abundant ingredient after fat and carbohydrates in breast milk. It functions as a probiotic helping to establish commensal bacteria. It also functions as anti-adhesives which help in preventing attaching of microbial pathogens to mucosal surfaces. It helps in lowering the risk of viral, bacterial and protozoan parasite infections.
The human milk oligosaccharides market is segmented on the basis of product type, application, and geography. Based on product type, the market is categorized into 2’-fucosyllactose, 3’-fucosyllactose (3’FL), 3’-sialyllactose (3’SL), 6’-sialyllactose (6’SL), lacto-n-tetraose (LNT), and lacto-n-neotetraose (LNnT), and others. The 2’- fucosyllactose product type is expected to hold the largest share in the market, owing to its anti-infective capacity. This can also be attributed to the fact that it has a positive impact on the nervous system and cognition, and also reduces the risk of inflammation in the babies.
Based on application, the human milk oligosaccharides market is classified into functional food and beverage, food supplements, infant formulas, and others. Among all these, infant formulas are anticipated to grow at the fastest rate during the forecast period. This is attributable to the health benefits associated with the infant formulas such as maintaining gut microbiota and inhibition of pathogen in infants.
Market Dynamics
Drivers
The major factors driving the human milk oligosaccharides market growth are rising awareness regarding the health benefits, increasing application areas, and technological advancements. The changing lifestyle of the young generation as well as the ageing population is encouraging the people toward healthy lifestyle. In order to remain healthy, people are preferring supplements in their food to enhance their immunity for longer and healthy life. Also, people are preferring them for their infants due to its potential benefits such as boost immunity, good nutrition, feed good bacteria in the gut, and others. Hence, these properties of the product is increasing demand globally.
Restraints
High cost of production is identified as a major restraint in the human milk oligosaccharides market. It cannot be synthesised directly through human milk because of low availability of donor group. Various manufacturers are working to develop the technologies to produce the product through synthetic and enzymatic methods. However, synthetic and enzymatic methods require high resources and capital in order to produce the final product, thus posing a main threat to the market growth.
Opportunity
Increasing focus on the development of cost effective production techniques has opened avenues for innovation in the human milk oligosaccharides area which is expected to create growth opportunities in the human milk oligosaccharides market for the industry players. This area has a lot of scope for improvement and innovation, as no such cost-effective technique is available in the market till date. Hence, the manufacturers can attain a competitive edge in the market through innovation and technological advancement.
Insights by Geography
Europe is anticipated to hold the largest share in the human milk oligosaccharides market during the forecast period, due to the increasing demand of infant formulas to boost their immunity. Along with that, the increasing demand of the product from functional food and beverage industry is also expected to propel the market growth. Also, APAC market is also expected to witness a good growth in the coming years, owing to the increasing demand to deal with rising issues related to chronic diseases.
Competitive Landscape
Some of the major players operating in the global human milk oligosaccharides market include Medolac Laboratories, ZuChem Inc., Elicityl SA, Glycom, Glycosyn LLC, Inbiose NV, Jennewein Biotechnologie GmbH, Dextra Group, GNUbiotics Sciences, DowDuPont Inc, and ProZyme Inc.
