The global market for Microplate Systems is projected to reach US$950 million by 2025, driven by growing applications in life sciences/biotechnology research, pharmaceutical drug development, food safety testing and clinical diagnostics. Few of the macro factors priming these end-use markets for higher growth and technology adoption include rising healthcare burden shaped by growing population, aging population, spread of infectious diseases, rising prevalence of chronic lifestyle diseases, need for newer more effective drugs, and the resulting increase in healthcare R&D investments. Microplate systems are ubiquitous laboratory equipment comprising microplates, microplate readers, and microplate handling equipment. They play a key role in automation of bioassays encompassing biochemical and cell-based assays. High Throughput Screening (HTS) utilize microplates. Clinical laboratories in this era of digital health are rapidly migrating towards the use of specialized, electronic laboratory equipment, instruments and analytical tools. Poised to benefit in this regard are innovative microplate systems such as multimode readers capable of measuring photometry, fluorometry, luminometry, time-resolved fluorometry with flexibility and high performance. The miniaturization trend sweeping through the electronics industry is resulting in the development of microplates in small factors. This is an important development given the increasing miniaturization of biological assays. Benefits of performing automated assays at the nanoliter scale include process efficiency, increase in productivity, reduced labor and resource utilization, higher speed and quality of data acquisition. All of these benefits are vital in the pharmaceutical industry which is today feeling all of the challenges of declining productivity and diminishing returns on investment. Microplates with microwells are therefore growing in demand for use in miniaturized assay development and screening in modern drug discovery.

Few of the noteworthy technology innovations in this market include development of microplates that use less reagents; growing success of DropArray microplates over traditional microplate due to features such as unique wall-less design that eliminates capillary action, and reduced need for expensive dispensing and aspiration instruments; development of microplates with several thousand wells per microplate; launch of colored microplates for different optical readouts; and innovations in microplate coatings i.e. tissue culture treated plates & coatings to prevent non-specific binding. Few of the other major trends in the market include popularity of Polystyrene & Polypropylene based microplates; and rise in enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA) and immunoassay tests against the backdrop of growing need for infectious disease testing and biotherapeutics drug discovery. The United States and Europe represent largest markets worldwide with a combined share of 71.9%. China ranks as the fastest growing market with a 6.6% CAGR over the analysis period supported by the globalization of the country’s life sciences sector. Supportive policies legislated by the Chinese governments have helped increase the number of life science companies operating in the market, while also enabling these companies to deliver critical innovations in medical products. Illustrative of the evolving domestic life sciences sector and also the opening up of opportunities for exporting Chinese-made pharmaceuticals is the two Chinese-produced vaccines prequalified by WHO in the year 2018. Asia-Pacific excluding China follows next with a 5.3% CAGR led by India, and other Southeast Asian countries.