Health Care Microfluidics Market to Hit $4 Billion by 2020
Microfluidics can offer portable, cheap, single-use devices that replace centralized laboratory equipment in health care facilities.
As the technology advances and medicine grows more personalized, the overall health care market for microfluidics will swell to nearly $4 billion in 2020, showing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 13 percent, according to a report from Lux Research.Microfluidics can offer portable, cheap, single-use devices that replace centralized laboratory equipment in health care facilities, and open new point-of-care (POC) diagnostic opportunities.Lux Research expects two types of companies to eventually dominate the microfluidics value chain—chip developers or manufacturers like miniFAB and Sony DADC, and device integrators like Agilent and Fluidigm.”Growth in microfluidics adoption will depend on the region. In the developed world, it will mostly be the shift toward the patient-centric approaches to health care where the shorter time to result plays a huge role in cutting the costs, improving outcomes and keeping patients or consumers happy,” Milos Todorovic, Lux research analyst and lead author of the report told eWEEK. “In the developing world, that will be a sheer need to fill the gap in technology available to providers and patients—infrastructure in those countries is poor—and in some places non-existent—so anything that becomes available at a price point these regions can tolerate will be welcomed.”
Today, microfluidic devices are present in several health care applications, and POC diagnostics, clinical diagnostics, analytical devices, life sciences research, drug discovery and formulation, and drug delivery are among the biggest markets, Todorovic said.