US MAbs Market "Set To Grow Explosively"

The US market for monoclonal antibody products will grow from a value of $437 million in 1993 to more than $3.5 billion by the year 2000, representing a compound annual growth rate of 34%, according to a new report from Frost & Sullivan.

Cancer imaging agents are forecast to show particularly strong growth over the period, rising from a value of under $40 million or less than 1% of the market in 1993 to account for 30% of the market by 2000. Notable growth is also forecast for sepsis drugs, which the study expects will arrive on the market in 1997 and to account for 15% of the market by 2000.

The biggest segments of the US MAbs market at present are home pregnancy testing and research reagents, both of which had sales over $100 million last year. However, these two sectors are both forecast to decline towards 2000, with home pregnancy tests dropping from 45% of the market to 10%, and research reagents falling from 25% of the total to 8% by the turn of the century. Professional pregnancy testing is the only sector of the market which has been showing annual growth of under 10%, hit by the growth of home testing kits.