Cell culture sector boosts biopharm fortunes
predicted to increase from $1.4 billion (€1.14 billion) in 2003 to
$2.6 billion in 2006. The market was dwarfed by the pharmaceutical
industry 20 years ago but continues to outgrow its rival increasing
its market share each year.
The cell culture industry, which began in the late 1980s from the utilisation of recombinant DNA technology and cell hybridisation, is now a significant foundation of the biopharmaceutical annual market.
The report, concentrates on the principle sector of the biopharm market - mammalian cell culture. Mammalian cell culture is a platform that can be utilised by biotechnology companies.
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly moving into the biopharm space, as well as cell reagent manufacturers and contract manufacturers trying in an attempt to maintain a competitive edge and meet future trends.
In 2000-2003, regulators in North America and Europe approved a total of 64 biopharmaceuticals for human use.
The approved drugs included hormones, blood factors, thrombolytics, vaccines, interferons, monoclonal antibodies (MAb), and therapeutic enzymes.
Many of these were produced in mammalian cell culture systems. Indeed, an estimated 50 new chemical entities were approved in the same period and over a quarter of all new drug approvals were biopharmaceuticals.
All of the 64 new biopharmaceuticals approved were protein-based drugs and an increasing number have undergone some form of engineering. The primary method of producing these biopharmaceuticals is mammalian cell culture.
One could look at the growth in the cell culture market as the by-product of the recent interest in stem cell technology.
These cells raise the prospect that they could be used to treat diseases, for example by creating new insulin-producing tissue for diabetes, or implanting stem cells into a damaged heart so they can grow new healthy tissue.
Indeed, acquisitions of companies that specialise in this area suggest that this is one area that is set to explode within the next decade.
In February this year, Serologicals continued its acquisitive streak, buying the cell culture business Specialty Media from Sentigen Holding Corp, for $6.5m (€4.9m).
Specialty Media develops and supplies a variety of specialty stem cell culture media formulations and supplements, cells and research reagent tools to the life sciences industry.
In the month preceeding, Sigma-Aldrich snapped up the JRH cell culture business of Australia's CSL for €283m, while in mid-2003 Sweden's Perbio was bought by Fisher Scientific for €626m.
While in a fairly embryonic stage at present, the market for stem cell-based therapies and tissue engineering is tipped to grow to around $10bn in 2013, according to a recently published report from Visiongain.
The report: "Mammalian Cell Culture: Production Technologies and Market Overview," is available to buy from Research and Markets.
