The Analytical & Life Science Instrument Industries: Looking Ahead to 2018

The overall analytical and life science instrument market is now valued at over $56 billion, and only continues to grow in strength.

When looking ahead to 2018, we predict that the overall market size for the analytical and life science instrument industries will grow to $58.7 billion, with the growth rate staying consistent with 2017 at 4.6%.

Despite last year’s large number of mergers and acquisitions, we predict that 2018 will be defined by several countries investing large amounts of funding into science and technology fields, which will increase demand for instrumentation in those economies. Some of these have been historical hotspots for instrument demand, but a few are relatively new to the table.

By our estimates, instrument demand in China is expected to again grow by a large percentage in 2018, and demand in India might also take a similar upswing if overall GDP growth proves to be a reliable indicator.

Latin America has seen some high instability in places such as Venezuela, but other countries such as Chile and Peru remain strong pockets of innovation, and as we mentioned earlier, Brazil has seen their currency grow increasingly stronger over the past few years. Japan is also on the map for increased science and biotech funding, although non-Japanese companies may find it difficult to penetrate the market there due to continued strong performance by local instrumentation powerhouses, such as Hitachi High-Technologies, JEOL, Canon, Nikon, etc.

For our industrial markets, atomic spectroscopy and gas chromatography have seen high growth in the past few years, but keep in mind that it has been a historically volatile market and diversified firms may want to shy away from making this sector a backbone of their longterm marketing and sales efforts.

Diagnostics is one of the more talked-about markets these days, and it’s not hard to see why. Many companies are investing in the space and adapting current instrument techniques to clinical applications. Or they’re simply acquiring smaller companies who already have products developed and are throwing their massive amount of resources behind them to help scale, market, sell and distribute their inventory.

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For more information about the growth of this constantly changing market, along with a sneak peak of our 2018 Global Assessment report for the Analytical and Life Science Industries, tune in to a free, 20-minute webinar with our analyst team on Wednesday, February 21at at 12:30pm EST. You can sign up via this registration link.