Single-use and disposable technologies have become established for many processes in the biomanufacturing industry, but the European market has historically led the way over the US, according to a report by BCC Research - a publisher of technology market research reports based in Wellesley, Massachusetts.
European revenue for such technology in 2013 was $512m (€465m), while the US clocked in sales of $451m. For 2014 the gap narrowed with Europe reporting sales of $599m and the US just $26m less, according to the Single-Use Technologies for Biopharmaceuticals: Global Markets report.
The market is expected to be around $3bn in 2019, the report continued, and while globally it is growing at a CAGR of 11.7%, the US is expected to grow at 14.2% over the next four years, catching up and overtaking Europe, as the table below – provided by BCC to Biopharma-Reporter.com – shows:
“Europe was the leader in single-use technology market in 2013,” said lead analyst Honey Dave. “Although in 2012 and 2013 the U.S. market was at a similar revenue level with emerging markets, in 2014 sales for the U.S. market were higher than emerging markets. A big reason for this was the acquisition of Life Technologies by Thermo Fisher.”
Earlier this year Sartorius reported a 32% increase year-on-year in sales to US customers, stating disposable sales from the region had finally caught up with Europe.
More cautious approach?
In 2013, this publication spoke with single-use supplier ATMI – now incorporated into Pall Corporation – with Global Product Manager Eric Isberg telling us “Europe is ahead of the US in terms of innovation and single-use.”
We caught up with Isberg, now Director of Life Sciences at Entegris, for his reaction to this latest report:
“I agree that the US will catch up with Europe in the next few years with single use implementation. However, the US companies are being much more cautious than Europe in their actual implementation,” he told us.
“Most big single use customers overall are re-evaluating their entire strategy in an attempt to streamline the number of suppliers they use. We are working with one large multinational whose strategies in the US and Europe in terms of streamlining single-use seem different and are led by different groups. Whether this is a reflection of different site strategies or not remains to be seen.”