Proteomics market to reach $17.5 billion by 2009

The prediction, made by Business Communications Company (BCC)​, reflects the industry's interest in this burgeoning field and lends scope to the breadth of this sector.

The pressure to discover and develop new therapeutics at a lesser cost and within shorter timeframes has led to many pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies actively seeking out alternative yet equally effective approaches that justify the mammoth costs involved with bringing a drug onto the market.

The report cites the sales of existing products such as microarrays, and biochips as well as new products including test kits for detecting airborne chemical warfare agents and protein structure modelling tools. Beyond 2009, growth is expected to continue as new applications are developed and global market penetration continues.

The DNA microarray market is one area of the total research products market that continues to experience robust growth worldwide due to a strongly installed base. With several different companies exist on the market, which include Affymetrix, NimbleGen and Agilent, growth is expected to hit $596 million in 2003 to $937 million in 2010, according to figures from Frost and Sullivan.

Drug discovery and healthcare are currently two of the largest market sectors, representing some 46 per cent and 20 per cent of revenues in 2004. BCC added that growth in the healthcare sector is expected to arise from a compelling need to reduce the overall cost of healthcare by means of early diagnosis of diseases.

The technology is being embraced in so many areas that no saturation effects are on the horizon. Indeed, given the intense growth of patent filings there is no reason to believe that there will be a slowdown in the growth of the DNA industry.

There are however, in the case of some applications, many different approaches to solving the same problem including microarrays and bead platforms leading to the conclusion that some of these technologies will displace others completely or force them to retreat to niche application areas. BCC predicted this would probably happen in the next few years leading to major shakeouts in the industry in terms of the numbers of companies participating.

Proteomics is a field that is younger than DNA sequencing and although applications are more limited, the impact of the technology could prove to be enormous. The industry is growing more by a diffusion process as the technology gradually replaces older laboratory methods.

However, there are still problems to growth simply because the use of the technology changes so many existing processes that extensive retooling may be required, and researchers are cautious about quickly embracing such change. For example, the use of the latest DNA sequencing technologies may not be compatible with existing equipment and hence researchers may be reluctant to invest in new and complex diagnostic tools.

Regulatory issues may also impede the growth of some application sectors including new drug efficacy standards that might arise from the use of DNA testing. Lastly, public opposition to genetically modified foods is already discouraging companies from investing in certain types of products.