Global Label-Free Detection Market to Reach $1.3 Billion by 2024

Amid the COVID-19 crisis, the global market for Label-Free Detection is projected to reach US$1.3 Billion by 2024, registering a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.4% over the analysis period. The United States represents the largest regional market for Label-Free Detection, accounting for an estimated 34.2% share of the global total. The market is projected to reach US$468.9 Million by the close of the analysis period. China is expected to spearhead growth and emerge as the fastest growing regional market with a CAGR of 9.7% over the analysis period.

Against the backdrop of increasing disease burden, there is growing need for new generation drugs and medicines that are not only effective but also safe, and affordable. This is throwing the focus on life sciences research and development. The healthcare sector is feeling the pressure to develop and manufacture effective antiviral agents and antibiotics capable of fighting serious diseases. This need becomes all the more urgent as drug-resistant pathogens infections increase by the year. There is also a growing need to accurately deliver drugs to targeted sites and regions to enhance therapy effects and patient/disease outcomes. More potent drugs are in acute demand for life-limiting conditions and diseases such as cancer, Alzheimer`s disease, mental illness, and diabetes. Under this scenario, governments` worldwide are providing policy led support to encourage life sciences R&D. In this regard, the U.S government is the world`s largest investor in health sciences research.

There is strong growth in government-sponsored research carried out at government laboratories. Few of the measures taken by governments to incentivize healthcare R&D include funding support for biological research, establishment of new research centers and laboratories, providing fellowship opportunities for researchers, initiation of recruitment programs for postdoctoral researchers and faculty, among others. All of these factors clearly indicate grant-funding agencies and science policy makers` appreciation of the need for research projects that help understand functioning of the human immune system against disease, understand disease pathways, decoding disease DNA and develop drugs that manipulate these pathways to enable treatment. Government funded research remains important since it helps keep the innovation flowing in developing new medications and drugs in financially unattractive markets and for neglected diseases.

This dedication to finding new drugs and treatments for diseases bodes well for label-free detection, which is defined as a type of mass spectrometry that helps quantify target elements in biological samples i.e. proteins, without the need for labelling of the analyte. Although an evolving and unproven technology, label-free detection is growing in popularity as an excellent research and general purpose analytical tool. Label-free detection utilizes optical, electrical, acoustic, signal intensity, or spectral counting to detect and quantify target compounds. Common uses of label free detection include drug/compound kinetics analyses; affinity analysis; yes/no end point screening and specificity testing; and concentration analysis, among others. The ability to perform label-free assays for biochemical and cell-based drug discovery is growing in importance due to the many benefits offered such as ability to identify difficult target classes, aids in high-throughput, independent screening of whole cells; provides new insights into compound action and helps devise better optimization strategies; increased sensitivity and specificity; shorter assay development times; avoidance of radioactive labels; less potential for false positive/negative; cheaper as it eliminates labelling/reagent cost; among others.

Conventional techniques that utilize labeled isotopes, fluorescence labeling, and radiolabeling tend to modify the physicochemical or binding properties, making accurate drug characterization difficult. All of these benefits are helping replace traditional techniques like radioactive assays, ELISA assays, fluorescent assays, luminescent assays with label-free options. The technology especially finds robust adoption in drug discovery where it is used in characterization of primary drug hits and pre-clinical profiling of lead compounds where target compounds are tested for their binding, off- target effects, toxicity, compound specificity, kinetics and affinity. All of these factors help in identifying superior drug properties in one compound. Label-free techniques aid in understanding and predicting a drug`s pharmacodynamics which is not possible with other conventional techniques.