The new research published by ARC Advisory Group forecasts the LIMS market to increase from $307.4m (€237.5) in 2005 to almost $400m in 2010, representing a five percent annual growth, driven by growing demand from laboratories.
LIMS are software systems used by manufacturers, and in particular pharmaceutical companies, to capture the structured data generated by analytical R&D, process, quality assurance, and quality control laboratories - the systems are designed to facilitate the time and efficient testing of samples and record the pertinent data.
According to ARC's "Laboratory Information Management Systems Worldwide Outlook", the growing demand for lab management systems has spawned a new generation of industry and application specific LIMS that are more user friendly, interoperable with other systems, and future proof.
This has spurred LIMS suppliers to develop solutions designed to relieve user business pain while reducing total cost of ownership.
"The LIMS market is expected to experience healthy growth as a result of increasingly stringent requirements, and replacement of paper-based and homegrown LIMS with commercial solutions, as even the smallest laboratories automate their information systems to capture structured data," the research said.
Indeed manufacturers are replacing paper-based and LIMS systems developed in house with commercially developed solutions with workflows designed to facilitate regulatory compliance.
"The explosion of data associated with the increased number of test samples researchers and manufacturers are generating will have a positive impact on the outlook for LIMS," said process automation analyst Paula Hollywood, author of the report.
"Enterprises are seeking efficient and cost effective solutions to handle this increase in the amount of data and ensure regulatory compliance."
In addition, the broadening of LIMS capabilities will also lead to higher revenues for suppliers, the research suggested.
The global manufacturing industry in general experienced a rebound last year that is expected to carry through to 2006 and beyond, particularly in the developing countries of the Asia-Pacific region.
The highly regulated pharmaceutical industry, where LIMS are employed most frequently, will continue to be the growth engines for the market as traceability requirements become more stringent, the study concluded.
In the past few months, a number of drug companies have made significant updates to their LIMS in order to address further critical needs in manufacturing R&D and quality control.
Thermo Electron, for example, recently updated its system with a new LIMS that features extensive interfacing capabilities to provide integration with its Systems, Applications And Products in Data Processing (SAP) for rapid batch disposition and release and streamlined workflow.