Point-of-care testing for infectious diseases set to rise

The infectious diseases point-of-care testing (POCT) market is set to rise from $696.1 million in 2015 to just over $1.17 billion by 2022, representing a compound annual growth rate of 7.7%.

This is according to research and consulting firm GlobalData, whose latest report states that this growth will occur across the 10 major markets of the US, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Japan, China, India and Brazil.

Wenlu Hu, GlobalData’s analyst covering medical devices, said the main barrier to the acceptability of infectious disease POC tests so far has been their relatively low accuracy when compared to central labs utilising nucleic acid methods. However, Hu noted, “technological innovations have enabled nucleic acid testing improvements that make POC molecular diagnostics possible”.

“Notably, promising technological advances include the loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP), which allows for the rapid detection of DNA/RNA without the requisite for thermal cycling, and the amplified redox assay, which can yield a highly multiplexed 20-minute nucleic acid test result using room-temperature-stable consumables,” she said.

In addition to improving technologies, as well as the growing home-testing market, a rising prevalence of infectious diseases in developing countries has shifted focus towards preventative care and early diagnosis. Early disease diagnosis is crucial to reducing healthcare cost, and POC technology will play a vital role in treating patients in a cost-effective manner.

“Infectious diseases are still the primary cause of mortality globally and, according to figures from the Clinical Microbiology and Infection journal, they claim approximately 14 million lives annually, making up around 25% of the 56 million deaths recorded worldwide,” said Hu. “The unprecedented increase in infectious diseases is a foreseeable long-term trend that is expected to result in a dramatic increase in the demand for cost-effective diagnostic techniques such as POCT.”

The report can be found on the GlobalData website.