A new report forecasts that the global companion diagnostics market will grow to $8.7 billion, up from $3.1 billion it is estimated to be in 2014.

That represents a compound annual growth rate of 22.7%, according to MarketsandMarkets, a market research firm, which issued the report.

A positive regulatory environment the world over, combined with the growing demand for targeted drugs for oncology, neurology, and infectious diseases, is driving the companion diagnostics market.

The market can be broken down by technology, application and end-user. Though there are different kinds of technologies in the companion diagnostics segment, the next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology is playing a big role in the development of companion diagnostic tests. That is bringing the promise of personalized medicine a bit closer to reality. 

The report also segments the application market into several types of cancer-related subsegments - lung cancer, breast cancer melanoma cancer and colorectal cancer - in addition to tests for neurological diseases, infectious diseases, ovarian cancer, and leukemia. This latter group is expected to grow at CAGR of 30.3% in the forecast period.

In terms of end user, the market can be split into pharmaceutical companies as well as reference laboratories and biotech companies, which are increasingly interested in companion diagnostic tests to help in the early stages of drug development, the report says. Demand from reference laboratories is expected to grow at the fastest rate in the period of the forecast. 

While the FDA and the EMA (European Medicines Agency) have encouraged the use of companion diagnostics, the global reimbursement landscape is a hindrance to the growth of this market, as is the use of nonvalidated tests to identify biomarkers, the report says.

However the global diagnostic market is expected to be boosted by NGS technologies and consequent development of companion diagnostics for different types of cancers as well as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.

Last year, Roche Diagnostics, Abbott, Agilent Technologies, Qiagen, and Thermo Fisher Scientific together accounted 86% of the global companion diagnostics market.

-- By Arundhati Parmar, Senior Editor, MD+DI
[email protected]