COVID-19 Diagnostics Market

Market Overview

The global COVID-19 diagnostics market was valued at USD 84500 million in 2020 and is expected to grow at 3.2% CAGR during the forecast period.

In 2019, a new coronavirus strain was identified to have caused a disease outbreak originating in Wuhan, China. The virus has now been categorized as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and referred to as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). However, due to the inability to contain the spread of the outbreak, in March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 as a pandemic.

Market Dynamics

Mass Testing of COVID-19 Suspected Patients All over the Globe Generates a Never-Ending Demand in the Market

The global outbreak and spread of COVID-19 have remained unchecked, and authorities, researchers, and market leaders have been actively seeking ways to manage the disease. In the meanwhile, as more and more people are exposed to the virus, there have been innumerable diagnostic tests carried out to confirm COVID infection of suspected patients daily.

For instance, as of 28th December 2020, according to the WHO reports, there have been 79.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 patients in total, where, 1,757,947 deaths are accounted for. Thus, quite naturally, owing to such a great number of confirmed COVID-19-positive patients, there has been extensive usage of diagnostic testing kits. Thus, owing to such high usage the market is anticipated to demonstrate an exponential growth rate.

Further, the number of COVID-19 patients is growing daily, which generates high and constant demand for testing/ diagnostic kits to test suspected patients, which directly influences the market growth.

Figure 1: Statistics of COVID-19 positive cases across geographic regions

*Source: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO), COVID-19 dashboard

Government Initiative to Implement Testing and Patient Screening Leads to Higher Consumption of Market Products

As the global lockdown measures and travel restrictions are being lifted, people have resumed their daily work and travel partially. However, at various facilities and infrastructures such as airports, metro stations, malls, and others, the government has implemented mandatory testing at all levels.

For instance, the Indian government has mandated rapid testing for passengers flying in and out of states and the country. However, despite the predicted gradual decline in patient volume in early 2021, the patient number is far from declining. Thus, government bodies are looking forward to permanently integrating COVID-19 testing into all routine diagnostic procedures for all incoming patients. These factors are expected to keep up the market growth.

The market is boosted by the rising government initiatives aimed toward the implementation of mass testing measures across the nations or affected regions. For instance, in September 2020, the Hong Kong government started voluntary mass testing through support from healthcare personnel from mainland China following which approximately 1.78 million Hong Kong citizens tested positive by 15th September 2020.

Further, following the same strategy on 11th September 2020, the British government announced mass COVID-19 testing across the U.K. thus, owing to such large-scale adoption of market products, the global market is forecasted to generate high revenue.

Regional Analysis

America Held a Significant Share of the Global Market 

American regional market dominated the global market amongst all regions holding a significant share of itself. This can be attributed to the rapid increase in COVID-19 cases in the region. For instance, the U.S. has registered the highest number of COVID-19-positive patients i.e., 19.7 million confirmed cases with 343,182 reported deaths and 249,115,459 total tests conducted as of 28th December 2020, according to world meter reports.

Further, the same source reports that Mexico and Argentina were reported to have 1.38 million and 1.59 million cases respectively. Further, owing to the government seeking rapid management strategies of the pandemic, regulatory bodies such as the U.S. FDA and Health Canada have approved grants as Emergency Use Authorizations (EUA) to COVID-19 test kits aimed to boost the testing capacities without compromising on patient health. Therefore, these factors are anticipated to fuel regional market growth.

Additionally, the local presence of key players such as Roche, Quest Diagnostics, Oxford Nanopore, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc, and others that are actively engaged in the development and manufacturing of diagnostic tests provides a major advantage to the regional market. For instance, as of 28th September 2020, market leader Quest Diagnostics was reported to have performed approximately 15.7 million COVID-19 molecular diagnostic tests and nearly 3.8 million COVID-19 antibody tests.

Asia-Pacific Regional Market Is Anticipated to Be the Fastest Growing Market Segment

Asia-Pacific is expected to emerge as a lucrative regional market and is thus, projected to grow at the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. This high growth rate is because the region accounts for a huge number of COVID cases within itself. For instance, China is the epicenter of the pandemic, whereas the Indian subcontinent, with its second-largest population, has registered the second-highest number of COVID-19 cases across all nations.

Table 1: COVID-19 Statistics of major Asia-pacific countries

*source: Worldometer

Further, China is one of the major suppliers of COVID-19 test kits, and more than 100 companies based or operating in the country are exporting these kits. Thus, the market is growing at a significant rate.

Segmental Analysis

By Products, Reagents, and Kits Segment Is Anticipated to Be the Fastest Growing Segment in 2020

By products, the reagents and kits segment is expected to register the fastest CAGR during the forecast period. The segmental products constitute all chemical reagents, kits, and other essential components unitized while performing a COVID-19 diagnostic test. Thus, as a greater number of diagnostic tests are being conducted every day, a huge number of these segment products are utilized in the same. Further, to put forward a fast response to the pandemic, many market players are channeling research into new product development, improving accuracy and time constraints.

For instance, in September 2020, Veredus Laboratories Pte Ltd. had launched an extraction-free RT-PCR suite that comprises a test kit called VereRT COVID-19 PCR kit. This test kit is capable of direct usage on the sample that is taken either from a swab or human saliva without prior treatment or extraction, thus, reducing test time significantly.

Additionally, the service segment in products is expected to witness a significant boost during the forecast period. This is primarily because major service providers are trying to boost their testing capabilities of the existing end-users such as labs and diagnostic centers by innovating and expanding through utilizing technological advancements. Further, there have been numerous collaborations between governments, market players, public health organizations to accelerate the expansion of testing capacities.

For instance, a French diagnostics company, Novacyt has joined hands with market giants such as GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, and the research hubs such as the University of Cambridge through a strategic alliance aimed to increase its testing capacity in the U.K.

By Sample Type, Nasopharyngeal Swabs Dominated the Global Market

The nasopharyngeal swabs segment is expected to account for the largest revenue share in the global COVID-19 diagnostic market. COVID-19 is caused by a respiratory pathogen that transmits through the air and infects through the windpipe. Thus, Nasopharyngeal swabs are the most anticipated and precise means of collecting samples from suspected patients as they can pick up very small traces of pathogen.

These NP swabs have been showcased a significantly higher SARS-CoV-2 sensitivity, detection rate, and viral load than other swab types. Further, most of the molecular diagnostic tests available utilized nasopharyngeal swabs specimen. Thus, it finds higher adoption when testing for COVID-19 and assessing SARS-CoV-2 load inpatient tests, which directly results in the largest revenue share of this segment.

Additionally, many market players have accelerated the production and supply of nasopharyngeal swabs to meet up with the constantly high demand to tests thousands of suspected patients. Thus, the segment products are anticipated to grow at a lucrative rate during the forecast period.

Also, the blood sample type segment has been growing rapidly and is estimated to register the highest growth rate. This can be attributed to the necessity of blood-based serology tests/antibody detection tests for the detection of SARS-CoV-2 infection. This is because of a major surge in asymptomatic patients that have been overserved globally and the ability of serology tests to detect asymptomatic symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Thus, owing to such factors, the demand for blood-based antibody detection testing has increased significantly in the market, which in return fuels the growth.

Recent Developments

• In September 2020, Eurofins Diatherixlaunched the Flu Plus test for COVID-29 test, which can be used across multiple facilities such as hospitals, labs nursing homes, and reference labs nationwide.
• In September 2020, LabCorp launched a combined test for RSV, flu, and COVID-19. The company has applied for the U.S. FDA approval to use this test with its Pixel by LabCorp at-home test collection kit.