BIOCHIPS MARKET ANALYSIS

Biochips Market - Insights

Biochips are miniaturized laboratories, which can perform simultaneous biochemical reactions. On the basis of functionality, biochips are classified as DNA chips, protein chips, lab-on-a-chips, and tissue and cell arrays. DNA chips, biochips or DNA microarrays consists of a microscope slide made of materials such as glass, silicon chips, and nylon membrane, which is printed with thousands of minute spots. These spots contain a known DNA sequence or gene in an orderly sequence. DNA microarray uses nucleic acid hybridization principle and type of DNA microarrays include cDNA microarrays, Oligo DNA microarrays, BAC microarrays, and SNP microarrays. Moreover, protein microarrays or protein chips contain platform made of glass or silicon containing spots of proteins arranged at defined locations, which interact with probe molecule in high-throughput manner. Protein arrays can be used in major areas such as protein function, expression profiling, drug discovery, and biomarker discovery. Manufacturers such as CDI Laboratories, Inc., ThermoFisher Scientific, InDevR, Inc., Illumina, Inc., and Randox Laboratories offer products in biochips market. Commercially available biochips include HuProt Proteome Microarray, ZikaProt (ZIKV/DENV) Proteome Microarray, Mycobacterium Tuberculosis (MTB) proteome microarray, GeneChip miRNA Array, Axiom genotyping array, and BovineSNP50 v3 DNA analysis beadchip.

Advancement in technology in biochips platform is expected to drive growth of the biochips market

Microarray and microfluidics technology has revolutionized the scientific research field by lowering time and costs required for conventional laboratory based approach of research. Microfluidics offer advantages such as reduced assay costs due to requirement of less amount of sample in nano-liter or pico liter volume, reduced labor cost, and increased sensitivity, accuracy, and throughput as compared to conventional laboratory procedures. The products based on DNA microarrays, protein chips, lab-on-a-chip, and organ-on-a-chip technologies have extensively alleviated existing issues associated with time and costs in their respective applicable fields. Ongoing research and development into the microarray and microfluidic technologies for various applications is further expected to boost market growth over the forecast period. For instance, in 2017, Griffith Institute for Drug Discovery (GRIDD) had started working to develop microfluidic platform to further reduce time and costs required for research.

The global biochips market was valued at US$ 7,026.4 million in 2016 and is expected to witness a robust CAGR of 16.2% over the forecast period (2017 – 2025).

Figure 1. Global Biochips Market Share (%), By Product Type, 2017 & 2025

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Source: Coherent Market Insights Analysis (2017)

Ongoing research and development in the biochips technology is supporting growth of the biochips market

Biochips technology and its applications is a highly lucrative field and is expected to reach US$ 26 billion by 2025 at a CAGR of 16.2% over the forecast period. This is partly due to extensive research and development in the field, which will eventually increase the adoption rate of these technologies. For instance, scientists at Harvard University have demonstrated the use of paper and threads as an effective option for cheap microfluidic devices. Integration of electrodes and electrical textile valves into these devices could make it further useful. An article published in Royal Society of Chemistry in 2017 consists of a method of pre-concentration (P-CLIP), which could help in overcoming challenges associated with detecting low concentrations of target analytes in small sample volumes, especially for diagnosis of infectious diseases. Furthermore, the Laboratory of Integrated Bio Medical/Nanotechnology & Applications at the University of Illinois has developed a microfluidic POC sepsis chip, which is capable of quantifying total white blood cell counts and CD64 expression levels on neutrophils in around 30 minutes, using just 10 microliters of a blood sample. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a microfluidic biochip can isolate single circulating tumor cells and help in delivery of personalized medicine in non-small cell lung cancer patients.

However, manufacturing complexity of the biochip technology and, research and development that is required to bring out innovative biochips in the market results in high costs of these products. Although these processes that require a complete laboratory are miniaturized on a silicon or glass chip in this technology saving time and costs, the biochips themselves are still costly for many of the end users such as research laboratories with limited resources who cannot afford to purchase this technology.

Some major players operating in the biochips market include Randox Laboratories, Fluidigm Corporation, Abbott Laboratories, Agilent Technologies, Inc., ThermoFisher Scientific, Inc., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc., Illumina, Inc., and PerkinElmer, Inc.