“The market is much newer in China and the population is much younger, so there’s less awareness of certain suppliers and less awareness on behalf of the researchers,” Anne St Louis, director of Percepta Associates, a life sciences market research firm, told BioPharma-Reporter.com.
Percepta recently conducted a survey of 449 scientists in China – 20% of which work in industry - and found that respondents said Qiagen, Tiangen and Life Technologies are the leading suppliers for the 15 market segments analysed. Six other companies emerged as second-tier NAP suppliers in China, including Roche, Corning/Axygen, BioTeke, Illumina, Promega and TaKaRa/Clontech.
Four of the NAP techniques are performed by 60% or more respondents and account for 52% of the overall market, according to Percepta, and they include plasmid DNA miniprep, gel extraction, genomic DNA isolation from cells and tissue and post-reaction cleanup.
Unlike the North American and European NAP markets, the Chinese market does not seem to have a clear leader. Percepta found that Qiagen is the dominant leader in Western markets, besting its closest competitors in North America and Europe by 37 percentage points on average for all segments analyzed.
But Qiagen’s dominance of North America and Europe may not extend to China.
“Life Tech can give Qiagen a run for their money in China,” St Louis said, noting that in North America and Europe there is a much larger gap between the top NAP leaders and those following. Roche and Promega may also “move the needle [in China] because the market leader is not as entrenched as in other markets,” she said.
And whichever company comes out on top will most likely have a larger market to control. Some sectors of the NAP market in China are expected to grow at an even higher rate than the overall market. For instance, DNA and RNA library preparation for next-generation sequencing are expected to grow at rates over 20%.
“There are fewer small players in North America and the EU,” St Louis noted, adding that there are a significant number of smaller local Chinese companies.
In addition to the China NAP market, St. Louis added that Percepta will be conducting similar surveys for the Indian and South Korean markets too.