NEW YORK, June 7 - The proteomics market is expected to experience fivefold growth over the next four years, increasing from a $561-million market to a $2.8-billion market by 2005, Front Line Strategic Management Consulting said Thursday in a report.
"Proteomics technologies will be increasingly important to the pharmaceutical industry's drug discovery and development efforts over the next five years,” the report’s lead author Joseph Fisher said in a statement. “These methods are the most direct way to study drug targets, primarily proteins, in detail."
The report also said that the most recent estimate that there are about 30,000 genes rather than 100,000 genes has shift the emphasis to the study of proteins as drug targets. Over the next few years, proteomics, currently centered on target identification and validation, will also become a central component in diagnostics.
“With high demand for products and services, as well as a host of companies developing technology offerings, proteomics will fuel the biotechnology sector as the trend toward genomics spending diminishes,” Front Line said. “In the longer term, revenues from drug discovery efforts will create even more growth.”
The report breaks up proteomics companies into six groups, including mass spectrometry and the 2-D gel market. Front Line forecast that a few players will continue to control the mass spec market, while the 2-D gel market will shrink as faster, simpler tools get developed.
The report said that the protein chip market would grow, naming Ciphergen Biosystems as a leader in the space. Front Line also singled out Integrative Proteomics for its efforts to develop ways to speed up protein analysis.