The aim of Biocompare's biennial antibody market survey is to better understand the gaps and challenges that researchers encounter when validating and determining the quality of antibodies. The 2015 survey found that technical content in the form of citations, data images and user reviews drive product consideration. Researchers place higher value on brand awareness and technical content than on price and availability when making their purchasing decisions. Survey respondents revealed that one-third of antibody users are currently spending $500 to $1000 per month on antibodies and this purchasing habit is predicted to increase 5.5% in 2016. Detailed information on the key factors that influence antibody validation, selection and purchasing decisions by researchers are summarized in a market report available from Biocompare. This article features excerpts from the 2015 report.
The 2017 antibody market survey is currently underway and results will be released in September.
Antibodies are big business
The global antibody market is in excess of $80 billion and continues to expand each year. The antibody market comprises three major sectors: therapeutic applications, diagnostic tests and research-use. The lion’s share of the business relates to therapeutic and diagnostic applications, including those that use regulatory-approved monoclonal antibodies as therapeutics to treat cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Research-use only antibodies, ubiquitously found in labs, are used for protein-target identification, regulatory characterization and discovery. They are readily available and accessible, without intellectual property or use constraints for most applications. They are a commonplace tool for proteomics researchers, and the results generated are the discovery steps to both therapeutic and diagnostic applications. The research-use only antibody market generates between $2.2 billion and $2.7 billion per year in revenue with an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.1% [1,2,3].
The research-use antibody market is a crowded and competitive space with more than 300 globally located vendors offering antibodies as cataloged items. The exact number of commercial antibodies currently available is difficult to define but could be as many as 2.6 million according to some estimates [4,5]. However, the specifications and definitions of “unique” products, based on origin sources, detection applications and sequences used to generate the antibody, are not typically shared by manufacturers or vendors, resulting in multiple listings of potentially the same product. Also, validation standards often are defined by either manufacturers or vendors, sometimes resulting in packaging/re-packaging and sales of similar or the same products with different specifications by two sources. The fact that many vendors OEM their products adds another level of complexity when trying to validate the properties, “uniqueness” and quality of an antibody. In the end, manufacturers,vendors and distributors are all vying for a foothold in the lucrative and expansive immunodetection market.
Standards for antibodies
Antibodies continue to be the gold-standard choice for protein identification, detection, modifications and alterations as well as for monitoring expression and cellular regulation. Antibodies are used every day, in labs around the world, for Western analysis, enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISA), immunohistochemistry (IHC) and immunoprecipitation (IP). Researchers have questioned the quality and reproducibility of antibodies. As described in many publications, months’—or even years’—worth of research has been shown to be incorrect or irreproducible, resulting in lost time, retracted publications and astounding funds spent on projects that ended up stalled or abandoned [6,7]. Manufacturers and vendors/distributors are in a dilemma. In a competitive market such as the immunodetection space, it is essential to distinguish products from the rest of the pack. This could include features, such as product portfolio, awareness, pricing, website utility, user reviews or customer support.
The biggest challenge faced by all parties is that there are no standards for validation or agreed-upon definitions of reproducibility across all antibody offerings. What defines a positive result can be very subjective. Independent efforts by consortia of scientists have attempted to address these quality and reproducibility issues with antibodies. Also, the journalistic community has a responsibility to continually educate and to help define and enforce standards as guidelines for researchers to follow when citing antibodies used to generate experimental results. Addressing the challenges with antibodies is an ongoing process that requires the effort and cooperation of all vested parties. The ultimate goal is the supply and use of immuno-products that move scientific efforts forward and continue to educate the scientific community.
Who is participating?
The key qualifier for participation in the survey was that respondents be actively using or purchasing antibodies. A total of 884 respondents took part in the survey. As seen in Figure 1, the majority of participants were in the United States/Canada, but there is a global representation in the study.
Researchers at academic institutions had the greatest participation (84%), but there was commercial representation (16%), which included biotech, clinical labs, pharma companies, diagnostics companies, custom research labs (CROs) and research product companies. Survey respondents most commonly carried the following titles: principal investigator, postdoctoral fellow, graduate student, staff scientists, lab manager or supervisor.
What are you looking at?
Results from the survey showed that Western blotting is currently the most used application for antibodies and the application that researchers are most likely to perform in the next 12 months. This is not surprising, as this method of protein detection and identification is a common technique used in most science labs. Methodologies, such as ELISA, fluorescence microscopy, immunohistochemistry (IHC) and flow cytometry, are all widely used by more than half of the respondents. As seen in Figure 2, survey respondents performed an average of six antibody-based applications on a weekly basis. Although each methodology has slightly different hands-on time requirements, these results suggest that antibody-based experiments can consume a great deal of a researcher’s work week.
Western blots, ELISA, IHC, imaging and flow cytometry are established immuno-based methodologies that will continue to be the “go-to” protein detection and characterization techniques for basic research scientists. The common factor found in all these methods is the antibody component. Although each of these methods has undergone slight improvements, the basic principles have not changed in more than 50 years. High quality, well-validated antibodies are an essential part of assisting scientist to do better research.
How do you tackle a new challenge?
The nature of science is constantly testing the unknown. This is part of the excitement as well as the challenge in doing basic research. Using questionable-quality or unclearly validated antibodies in an experiment is an additional obstacle that most researchers would prefer to avoid.
As seen in Figure 3, respondents in the survey said strong brand awareness as well as detailed technical information on the product are critical factors that influence their behavior when testing a new antibody for the first time. Price, as well as a screening any available product, were nearly three times less likely to affect usage. When testing a new antibody, trusted brand awareness and technical content are key considerations for scientists in validating the product and ultimately progressing their research.
The survey says
Antibodies are a key reagent used to identify and characterize the expression, localization and potential regulatory interactions and modifications of proteins. Researchers in the life science space are continually striving to find antibodies that offer greater sensitivity, reproducibility and selectivity to detect their targets. This survey summarizes the key factors that research scientists consider when they are learning, selecting, validating, purchasing and using antibodies. Given the ongoing issues with antibody validation and reproducibility, this survey closely examines the information that scientists require to get them through the hurdles and obstacles in choosing and ultimately purchasing an antibody.
Technical information in the form of citations, images and user-generated reviews, was repeatedly selected as a key factors when making a decision about an antibody purchase (see Figure 4). Brand awareness is another important criterion as researchers select antibodies. This combination of technical information and strong brand awareness leads to brand consideration.
Collaborative solutions
Based on the results of this survey, generating and sharing technical information, citations, data-images and product reviews about the antibodies used and the systems being studied are important steps toward better validation and characterization of these essential reagents. Ultimately, it will take a collaborative effort among manufacturers, vendors, the journalistic community and the scientific community to determine and establish standards and criteria for determining the quality and reproducibility of antibodies.
The executive summary and details on obtaining the Biocompare 2015 Antibody Market Report can be found here. This report is meant to be a definitive resource for Marketing and Business Development teams planning growth strategies in the complex and competitive antibody market.
References
[1] DeciBio, Life Science Research Tools Market Size, Growth and Trends (2009-2017),3rd edition, 2014.
[2] MarketsandMarkets, Antibody Production Market by Product-Analysis and Global Forecast to 2019, May 2015.
[3] BCC Research, 2015 Antibody Drugs: Technologies and Global Markets, report code BIO016J, February 2015.
[4] www.Biocompare.com
[5] Pivotal Scientific Limited, "The Research Antibody Market, 3rd edition, 2015.
[6] Bradbury, A, Pluckthun, A, Reproducibility: Standardize Antibodies Used in Research," Nature, 518, 27-29, 2015. [Pubmed ID: 25652980]
[7] Baker, M, "Blame it On the Antibodies," Nature, 521:274-276, 2015. [Pubmed ID: 2599394]