New Companies Drive Rapid Expansion of Protein Chip Market


December, 2000 — With more than a dozen companies poised to enter the market, sales of protein chips are likely to balloon from $45 million in 2000 to almost $500 million in 2006, according to a new study by BioInsights of Redwood City, California. In its report, Protein Chips: The Race for High-Throughput Protein Analysis, BioInsights has identified and analyzed 20 companies that are likely to join current protein chip makers Biacore and Ciphergen in their attempt to meet the strong demand for high-throughput analysis of proteins.

The emergence of these new players is tied to the explosion of data on gene sequences and expression patterns. The new data have spawned great interest in the functions, expression patterns, and interactions of the corresponding proteins. This, in turn, is fueling the demand for protein chips, which offer greater throughput and versatility than the currently available tools, such as 2-D gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry.

BioInsights, a biotech research and consulting firm, reports that the success of protein chip companies depends on their ability to overcome technical hurdles, but that advances in technology are likely to make them successful. New surface chemistries have the potential to immobilize a wide range of proteins in their active conformations. New high-throughput methods for expressing and purifying proteins should help companies build vast libraries of recombinant proteins to place on chips. New capture agents will allow researchers to specifically bind and quantify target proteins. And the incorporation of proven detection methods should allow the development of reliable and easy-to-use systems. If all these technologies prove successful, BioInsights projects that the protein chip market will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 49% from 2000 to 2006.

Protein Chips: The Race for High-Throughput Protein Analysis is an integrated market and technical analysis. BioInsights interviewed leading academic researchers and company representatives to provide the foundation for a comprehensive technology and strategy evaluation of the emerging players in the market. The report divides the protein chip market into two categories, (a) pre-fabricated protein chips, and (b) tools to assemble protein chips. Each category is examined for effectiveness and likely success in two types of applications, (a) protein expression profiling, and (b) protein interaction profiling. BioInsights then analyzes each category and application across six market drivers: (1) opportunities and challenges, (2) customer demand, (3) technology, (4) applications, (5) competitive environment, and (6) alternative technologies. From this, BioInsights derives a market model for the next six years, from 2000 to 2006.

Protein Chips: The Race for High-Throughput Protein Analysis is the fourth in a series of reports from BioInsights, a research and consulting firm that specializes in emerging technologies and markets in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. For more information on this report and to request a table of contents, contact BioInsights at 650-701-0280 or at marketing@bioinsights.net.