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Advances in Laboratory Automation Markets in Europe
Frost & Sullivan, June 2006
This Frost & Sullivan research service titled Advances in Laboratory Automation Markets in Europe provides an analysis on the key drivers, industry challenges, restraints, principal trends and revenue forecasts of different product segments that impact the development of drug discovery. In this research, Frost & Sullivan's expert analysts thoroughly examine the following markets/applications/technologies: automated liquid handling, robotics systems, microplate readers and automated compound storage and retrieval sectors.
Market Sectors
Expert Frost & Sullivan analysts thoroughly examine the following market sectors in this research:
- Automated liquid handling
- Robotics systems
- Microplate readers and detection
- Automated compound storage and retrieval
Technologies
The following technologies are covered in this research:
- Bioassay: This refers to the analytical measurement procedure that determines the concentration and the degree of biological activity of the relevant substance.
- Cell-based Assays: Cell-based assays refer to the screening procedure that has the ability to track the behaviour of the dynamic activities inside a cell. With automation becoming imperative, these processes will catalyse the lead identification process with a faster turn-around-time.
- High Throughput Screening (HTS): HTS is the rapid assessment of sample activity of samples from a combinatorial library or other compound libraries by running assays in parallel in 96 well or 384 microplates.
- High Content Screening (HCS): HCS is the screening process with multi-dimensional information rich content depicting the spatial and temporal activities of the cell. The enormous advantage that drug research can enjoy would be the availability of functional readouts by cataloguing the cellular activity profiles in every well, thus reporting the cytoxicity, potency for a compound’s behaviour against the target.
Market Overview
Integration of Technologies to Offer Improvements in Laboratory Automation
In recent times, drug discovery design has undergone a revolutionary process due to influential factors such as cost benefits and error reduction, thereby leading to the mandatory requirement for automation in every research laboratory. The emergence of robotics and automated liquid handling requirements is expected to support the use of innovative laboratory automation technology, with enhanced focus on miniaturisation. Further, the high throughput screening mechanism has undergone radical changes with many disruptive technologies yielding better results and requiring parallel improvements on the supporting instrumentation. Yet another significant development is the standardisation of assays with high content screening (HCS) analysis assuming enhanced emphasis in the screening process.
With improved focus on the volume of laboratory equipment used, miniaturisation offers the major advantage of alleviating the need for manual intervention between experiment cycles. Due to the advent of many miniaturisation technologies amidst other automation techniques, drug discovery is witnessing several changes, says the analyst of this research service. As a result, the market is witnessing increased deployment of automation processes by pharmaceutical and drug research companies to ensure accelerated development of safer drugs with optimal research and development (R&D) costs.
Configurability Essential to Overcome Hurdles in Customised Automation Devices
Automated liquid handling workstations backed up by robotic systems are lending flexibility to automation systems, providing the benefit of having specialised modular work cells for customised tasks. Automated compound management is gradually adapting to robotic and automated dispensing environments for plate reformatting, thereby keeping pace with the miniaturised plate formats. In comparison to the automated compound handling segment, the automated liquid handling and robotic systems segments are likely to exhibit slower growth rates. However, with the concept of miniaturisation and the combination of microfluidics and nanotechnology likely to gain momentum, they are expected to display improved growth in future. Meanwhile, in view of the ongoing technological advances, the microplate reader market segment is expected to witness steady growth.
The high price sensitivity of biological consumables is likely to hamper the development of the miniaturisation technology. The growing demand for miniaturisation is leading to an increase in the level of complexity in assay design and development, remarks the analyst. While microfluidics and new technologies have identified minimal use of consumables, there has been a surge in the reagent budget in response to rising high throughput and ultra-high throughput screening needs. Hence, to sustain overall market growth, niche participants would do well to identify early customers and their requirements and subsequently focus on product implementation. Moreover, providing reproducible solutions with easily configurable software architecture will enable automation vendors to gain a competitive edge in the market.
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