Growing Demand for Personalized and Precision Medicine
The therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) market is primarily being driven by the increasing movement towards the personalised/precision medicine concept in the healthcare industry today. Many commonly prescribed medications such as immunosuppressants, antiepileptics, antibiotics, cardiovascular medications and oncology therapies all have a narrow therapeutic index. A small variation in dosage can result in either toxicity or inefficacy. Consequently, TDM is an important parameter used to optimise medication dosing by factoring in patient-specific variables such as age, genetics, organ functions, drug-drug interactions and disease states. Furthermore, there has been a continued increase in long-term and complex medication regimens due to the increasing burden of chronic conditions, the rising prevalence of cancer, organ transplants, and severe infections, making the requirement for accurate monitoring of these drug levels necessary for effective treatment. Additionally, there is growing emphasis from healthcare systems on reducing adverse drug reactions, hospital readmissions, and failure to achieve desired therapeutic outcomes, all of which can be managed through the routine monitoring of drug concentrations in patient's blood. Advances in analytical technologies, such as high sensitivity immunoassays and mass spectrometry, have provided major improvements to the overall reliability and speed of clinical adoption of TDM. Therefore, as patients and physicians seek out the safest and most effective therapies that take into account individual patient characteristics, the demand for TDM will be strong from hospitals and diagnostic laboratories.
Expansion in Emerging Markets and Point-of-Care Testing
Within the therapeutic drug monitoring segment of the overall healthcare market, the most attractive opportunity at this time is the continued growth and expansion of TDM into developing nations, as well as the development of point-of-care (POC) testing solutions. Within the geographic regions where developing healthcare systems have been observed over the last several years (Asia Pacific, Latin America, select countries within the region referred to as the Middle Eastern Region), the healthcare systems in these typical "emerging" economies are expanding rapidly. As these countries continue to build up their healthcare systems and the density of patients diagnosed with chronic diseases continues to increase, the trend toward increased access to sophisticated medical treatments, including oncology and transplant therapies with required close monitoring of drug levels, is occurring at an accelerated pace. However, TDM adoption remains at a relatively low level, providing a significant growth opportunity for TDM within these geographic regions as the level of TDM awareness and affordability increases.
The growth of compact, rapid, and user friendly POC TDM devices is another attractive growth opportunity. The development and availability of POC TDM devices will provide healthcare professionals with improved access to TDM testing, thus allowing for quicker clinical decisions during critical care situations or in emergency room environments, as well as in remote or resource-limited settings when a centralized laboratory may be less accessible. In addition, integrating TDM with digital health solutions and electronic medical records will increase the clinical value of TDM by allowing healthcare professionals to adjust doses in real-time and optimize patient treatment. Companies that invest in developing cost-effective methods of providing TDM testing, as well as companies that develop portable technology, and establish strategic partnerships with their commercial counterparts in healthcare, will be well positioned to take advantage of this enormous opportunity for the global expansion of treatment drug monitoring.
