[166 Pages Report] MarketsandMarkets forecasts the high content screening market to grow from USD 557.1 million in 2017 to USD 909.0 million by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 10.3% during the forecast period. The major factors that are expected to be driving the high content screening market are need for cost containment in pharma R&D, growth in funding for cellular research, and technological advancements in HCS solutions are expected to support the growth of the HCS market during the forecast period. On the other hand, the high cost of HCS instruments and the dearth of knowledgeable and skilled personnel for the operation of high-content screening instruments are expected to restrain the market growth to a certain extent.

By product, the HCS instruments segment is expected to dominate the market

The HCS instruments market accounted for the largest share of HCS market primarily attributed to advances in instrumentation and automation techniques and high prices of the HCS instruments. The software segment is expected to register the highest growth during the forecast period. The growth of this market is attributed to the technological advancements in image acquisition, data analysis, and storage capabilities and the need to obtain information on changes in cell morphology through high-quality images.

By deployment type, the cloud segment to record the highest CAGR during the forecast period

On the basis of application, the high-content screening market is segmented into target identification and validation, primary and secondary screening, toxicity studies, compound profiling, and other applications such as angiogenesis, apoptosis, cell cycle and mitotic index, cell proliferation, endocytosis, protein synthesis, and stem cell differentiation. The primary and secondary screening application segment is expected to grow at highest CAGR during the forecast period. The high growth can primarily be attributed to the wide use of HCS for secondary screening purposes. Growth in the primary and secondary screening segment can also be attributed to the presence of a large number of potential drug candidates for target-specific delivery.

North America to account for the largest market size during the forecast period.

North America is the largest market for high-content screening, followed by Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East & Africa. High R&D expenditure, the presence of major pharmaceutical market players, and increasing government support are some of the factors contributing to the large share of North America in the market. However, the Asia-Pacific market is expected to register the highest growth during the forecast period owing to increased research in drug discovery, government initiatives, growing focus of multinational companies on emerging markets, and developing R&D infrastructure.

Market Dynamics

Driver: Need for cost containment in pharmaceutical R&D

According to the California Biomedical Research Association (CBRA), it takes an average of 12 years for a drug to travel from the research lab to the patient, including 1�6 years for toxicology studies alone. In addition, only five in 5,000, or 10%, of the drugs that begin preclinical testing ever make it to human testing. Out of these five, only one is approved for human usage. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development (U.S.) report published in the Journal of Health Economics in March 2016 estimates that the average cost to develop and gain a marketing approval for a new drug amounted to USD 2.56 billion. The high cost and long duration of drug development are compelling pharmaceutical companies to revise their R&D expenditure. The conventional method of toxicity studies involves the screening of large libraries in search of potential drug candidates. This method is expensive, resource- & time-consuming, and has a low success rate. Hence, HCS solutions for testing the potential toxicity of chemicals and complex substances are being adopted by pharmaceutical companies to improve in vitro toxicity testing by reducing the time and cost. This is fueling the growth of the high-content screening market and is expected to act as a major driver for this market during the forecast period.

Restraint: Lower adoption of HCS instruments due to their high prices

HCS instruments are equipped with advanced cell imaging and analysis features and functionalities and thus are priced at a premium. A confocal microscope can cost more than USD 200,000. The InCell 2000 Analyzer system (from GE Healthcare) used in HCS costs around USD 240,000. The price for a flow cytometer instrument varies from USD 35,000 for simple cell analyzers to above USD 300,000 for more complex systems with higher throughput. For instance, the CyFlow Cube 6 from Sysmex-Partec costs around USD 35,000. The S3 cell sorter from Bio-Rad Laboratories is priced at USD 150,000 while BD�s FACSJazz costs around USD 240,000. Academic research laboratories find it difficult to afford such instruments, as they have restricted budgets. On the other hand, pharmaceutical companies require many such systems and hence their capital costs increase significantly. Moreover, the maintenance costs and several other indirect expenses increase the total cost of ownership of these instruments. High cost, therefore, hinders the wide adoption of HCS instruments in both clinical and research applications, especially in emerging nations.

Opportunity: Increasing number of CROs providing HCS services

HCS is used in several stages of the drug discovery process, including primary and secondary screening, target identification and validation and toxicity studies. As HCS instruments are expensive, they add to the overall drug development expense for pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies. Moreover, budgetary restrictions among academic institutes restrict the purchase of these instruments. Also, the handling of these equipment requires skilled professionals. As a result, many companies and academic institutes prefer to outsource HCS services to CROs. Due to the rising demand for outsourced service providers in HCS, an increasing number of CROs are offering HCS services. This, in turn, serves as an opportunity for the growth of the HCS market.

Challenge: Dearth of Knowledgeable and skilled operators of HCS instruments

HCS instruments such as flow cytometers and multimode readers have relatively complex technologies. Experts with a good knowledge of cell-based assays and handling software & instruments are required for their optimum utilization. However, there is a significant shortage of skilled personnel in this market. A survey conducted by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) in the U.K. revealed a lack of skilled personnel in pharmaceutical companies. Around 93 employees from 59 pharmaceutical companies participated in the survey. More than 50% respondents in the survey expressed an urgent need to improve the availability of staff in 10 discipline areas. Owing to the shortage of skilled and knowledgeable professionals, companies tend to prefer conventional screening methods of cell-based assays; this presents a significant challenge to the growth of the HCS market.

Scope of the Report

The research report categorizes the HCS market to forecast the revenues and analyze the trends in each of the following sub-segments:

Global High-content Screening Market, by Product

Instruments Cell Imaging and Analysis Systems Flow Cytometers

Consumables Reagents & Assay Kits Microplates Other Consumables

Software

Services

Accessories

Global High-content Screening Market, by Application

Target Identification and Validation

Primary Screening and Secondary Screening

Toxicity Studies

Compound Profiling

Other Applications

Global High-content Screening Market, by End User

Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Companies

Academic and Government Institutes

Contract Research Organizations (CROs)

Global High-content Screening Market, by Region

North America U.S. Canada

Europe Germany U.K. France Switzerland Rest of Europe

Asia-Pacific Japan China India Rest of Asia-Pacific

Latin America

Middle East & Africa

Key Market Players

GE Healthcare (U.S.), Danaher Corporation (U.S.), Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc. (U.S.), PerkinElmer, Inc. (U.S.), Tecan Group (Switzerland), BioTek Instruments Inc. (U.S.), Becton, Dickinson and Company (U.S.), Bio-Rad Laboratories (U.S.), Yokogawa Electric Corporation (Japan), and Merck Millipore (U.S.)

Danaher Corporation is a market leader of the global high-content screening market. The company designs, manufactures, and markets professional, medical, industrial and commercial products and services. Through its subsidiaries, the company offers solutions in the market. Danaher Corporation primarily focused on product launches as its key business strategy. For example, in February 2017, Molecular Devices, LLC (U.S.), a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation, launched the SpectraMax iD3 Multi-Mode Microplate Reader. This added another platform to the company�s portfolio to expand its reach in the HCS market. Moreover, in April 2016, Molecular Devices, LLC (U.S.) launched the ImageXpress Micro 4 High-Content Imaging System. This further strengthened the HCS product portfolio of the company. The company also focused on acquisitions to improve its market share. In April 2014, Beckman Coulter Life Sciences (U.S.) a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation, (U.S.) acquired flow cytometer developer Xitogen Technologies (China) in order to employ its solutions in basic research experiments.

Recent Developments

In February 2017, Molecular Devices, LLC (U.S.), a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation, launched the SpectraMax iD3 Multi-Mode Microplate Reader, a solution which allows multiple SpectraMax iD3 instruments to be controlled from one workstation using network connectivity. .

In January 2017, PerkinElmer, Inc. launched the Vectra Polaris automated quantitative pathology imaging system. This multi-modal tissue imaging system enables researchers to gain a deeper level of understanding of disease mechanisms related to new cancer immunotherapy approaches.

In November 2016, Merck Millipore collaborated with Evotec AG (Germany), to provide screening services for Merck�s collection of genetic reagents such as CRISPR and shRNA libraries. With Evotec�s screening expertise, Merck was able to explore and identify new drug targets.

In August 2015, Becton, Dickinson and Company acquired Cellular Research, Inc. (U.S.), a biotechnology R&D company. Through this acquisition, BD combined its BD FACS single-cell sorting instrumentation and software with Cellular Research�s Precise assays based on the Molecular Indexing technology to offer customers an integrated workflow for measuring both nucleic acid and protein expression in cellular subtypes.

Critical questions the report answers:

Where will all these developments take the industry in the long term?

What are the upcoming trends for the HCS market?

Which segment provides the most opportunity for growth?

Who are the leading vendors operating in this market?

What are the opportunities for new market entrants?

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