Infectious disease testing was one of the fastest growing segments of the diagnostics industry even before the COVID-19 pandemic. Valued at $13.536 billion in 2020, the market for tests capable of detecting infectious diseases got a jolt from the coronavirus crisis and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 3.21 percent from 2021 to 2028 and reach $17.432 billion by 2028, according to a report from financial consulting firm Verified Market Research (VMR).
The Infectious Disease Market
There are hundreds of known viruses, bacteria, parasites, and fungi that can invade the body and cause illness. Approximately 9 million people worldwide die each year as a result of infectious diseases. That’s why the market for infectious disease tests designed to detect, differentiate, and characterize these different kinds of pathogenic microorganisms has been on the rise for several years.
Of course, the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes coronavirus is a pathogen targeted by infectious disease testing. Thus, while the COVID-19 pandemic thwarted growth in most segments of the diagnostics market, it had the exact opposite effect on infectious disease testing. However, while growth of SARS-CoV-2 tests, which didn’t even exist before 2020, has exploded, the pandemic reduced testing for other kinds of infectious diseases. As the pandemic winds down, those trends have evened out with other forms of infectious disease testing recovering and surpassing pre-pandemic levels.
Market Segments
The infectious disease diagnostics market is made up of four segments:
- In vitro diagnostics (IVD)
- Point of care diagnostics (POC)
- Molecular diagnostics
- Consolidation
The IVD segment is currently the biggest and fastest growing, driven by the rise in the elderly population which leads to higher prevalence of chronic and infectious diseases and need for instruments and tests capable of detecting them. Key players in the IVD segment include Abbott, Roche, Danaher, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Quidel, Hologic, Becton Dickinson, Bio-Rad, Qiagen, Bruker, Grifols, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics, Siemens Healthineers, Biomérieux, DiaSorin, and Luminex.
Growth in the POC segment is being driven by the adaptation of infectious disease testing procedures at the point of care by sites in hospitals, outpatient facilities, physicians’ offices, nursing homes, retail clinics, and other near-patient markets.
Drivers of growth in the molecular diagnostics segment include the development of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), isothermal nucleic acid amplification technology (INAAT), hybridization, and other technologies.
By Disease
By disease, infectious disease test segments include:
- AIDS
- Influenza
- Tuberculosis (TB)
- Malaria
- Sepsis
- Hepatitis
- Dengue
Among these segments, TB is projected to be among the most profitable by 2025, according to VMR, due to the rising number of global cases (around 10 million infected worldwide by the end of 2018).
The Kalorama Report
Kalorama Information, another consulting firm that has long tracked growth in infectious disease testing, takes a more expansive view of growth in the segment. In an updated version of its 2019 study, Kalorama’s most recent report estimates the overall market for infectious disease testing to be worth $62.7 billion. While keeping its projected growth rates proprietary for purchasers of the report, Kalorama lists the factors that are and will continue to fuel growth in the segment, including:
- The aging population, which will increase the number of individuals vulnerable to infectious and viral conditions
- Epidemiological patterns making TB, hepatitis, sepsis, and other diseases likely to continue as health threats, especially in developing countries
- Expansion of IVD test utilization for early detection as part of healthcare cost-containment activities
- Periodic emergence of new infectious and viral disease threats like COVID-19
- Wider acceptance of routine infectious disease screening as part of basic inpatient and outpatient care
- Increased efforts by hospitals and other medical facilities to reduce the incidence and mortality of healthcare-associated infections (HAIs).
Other key findings from the Kalorama report address growth in value and volume for different segments of the infectious disease tests market:
- Immunoassays have the largest value and volume of growth in the segment due to low costs, improved capabilities, and wider availability of POC tests
- Molecular testing is growing the fastest as a result of advances in PCR, PCR-alternative amplification, next-generation sequencing, microarray, and other advanced genetic methodologies
Average value and volume growth for conventional microbiology is below average, although the modality is still widely used for identifying complex microorganisms and evaluating microbial resistance to anti-infective agents.