HANDHELD BIOPHOTONICS: Biophotonics is growing, no matter how the market is defined

An industry report released in April 2013, Biophotonics Market: Technologies and Market Analysis, acknowledges that the size of the biophotonics market and its growth rate depend on how broadly you define the space. But between the years 2012 and 2017, the market will grow approximately 8–9 percent, no matter how it's defined: The total biophotonics-related market, which includes consumables and reagents in addition to systems and components, will grow from $23B to $36B; while a subset of this, the global biophotonics systems market, will grow from $20B to $31B; and a still smaller subset, the biophotonics components and modules market, will grow from $13B to $19B.

The report is offered by the European Photonics Industry Consortium (EPIC) in association with Tematys (Paris, France) and Yole Développement (Lyon, France).

"Biophotonics is at a turning point in its evolution, as it prepares to leave the bulky systems market and enter the mass market," says a key statement in the report's executive summary. Once limited to hundreds or thousands of units per year in high-end desktop devices for life science and healthcare applications, biophotonics now promises to enable cost-effective devices targeting million-unit markets, and to open doors for new entrants. High-end markets like microscopy, spectroscopy, and medical imaging—traditionally based on large, expensive systems—have been mostly closed to new entrants. New technologies driven by fast-growing newcomers have changed the rules.