Biobanking market will reach $24.4bn in 2017, with further growth to 2023

Thursday 2 May 2013, Amsterdam

This study predicts the world market for biobanking in human medicine will generate $24.4bn in 2017. That market was worth $12.2bn in 2012 and will expand strongly from 2013 to 2023, according to Biobanking for Medicine: Technology and Market 2013-2023, published in March 2013.

The study forecasts that, from 2013 to 2023, the overall world market for that medical sample preservation will more than double in revenues. In the biobanking industry and market, biorepositories, biotrusts and biolibraries will develop and prosper. Their networks will also expand, nationally and internationally. Main segments for revenue growth will include the human tissue and stem cell submarkets.

Jennifer Taylor, a pharmaceutical industry analyst, said: “That market expansion will be driven by the increasing use of banked human tissues, primary cell lines and stem cells in preclinical pharmaceutical research and development. Currently, around 90% of drugs in clinical trials fail; pharmaceutical companies are looking for more-reliable preclinical models to reduce unnecessary R&D spending. Increasingly, they are looking to human tissue and stem cell models for preclinical drug development, as they provide a more-accurate representation of how drugs will act in the clinical setting.

“The development and public awareness of stem cell treatments will also drive expansion of the market. Over the coming 10 years there will be an increase in stem cell banking for future therapeutic use. The highest rates of market expansion will occur during the first half of the forecast period. Between 2017 and 2023, this rate of expansion will begin to slow as more companies become established, increasing competition and saturating the market.”

The strength of the biobanking market derives from its vital role in drug development and personalised medicine, as well as the demand for private stem cell banking. However, the market also faces challenges of standardisation and harmonisation of biobanking practices. Also, in 2013, the market is diverse and fragmented, with biological samples contained in many small biobanks around the world; researchers often face difficulties accessing a high number of high quality biospecimens. However, the establishment of biobanking networks in many countries helps to overcome these challenges, the study concludes.

That report shows revenue forecasts to 2023 at overall world market, submarket and national level. Its research, data and analyses cover activities of Tissue Solutions, Asterand, Biopta, BioServe and other providers of technologies and services for archiving medical biosamples.

In addition to forecasting the overall world market for the topic, the study predicts revenue trends for three world-level submarkets and component segments:

• Human tissue samples
• Stem cells and related material
• Other biopreservation (including DNA, RNA and body fluids)