One of the few bright sides since the start of the pandemic is the healthcare & life sciences industry, which experienced remarkable resilience all the way through 2022.
Frost & Sullivan forecasts the global healthcare & life sciences industry to hit revenues of $2.8 trillion by 2025, riding on a booming healthcare consumerism trend.
“The omicron wave is upon us, and industry leaders continue to be pinned to successfully navigate this wave with solid growth strategies—one designed with clear goals in mind to address the permanent features of long covid,” noted Nitin Naik, global practice area leader-healthcare & life sciences at Frost & Sullivan. “While it is difficult to predict the future, we have identified 10 growth opportunities which will greatly increase industry’s successful transition into the new normal.”
- Multi-omics-based blood tests: Frost projects simple and accurate blood tests for early cancer detection that integrates actionable insights into health systems and operationalizes a feedback loop between care and science that will gain significance in 2022 and beyond. Multi-omics liquid biopsy test is expected to grow at a CAGR of 23.2% from $364.5 million in 2020 to $1,052.3 million in 2025.
- Targeted RNA Therapeutics: With approximately $ 20 billion of cash/cash equivalent invested by top 10 companies, Frost predicts that investors will bet more to develop nascent technologies, control strategies and lipid nanoparticle (LNP) delivery for the next generation of RNA therapeutics. mRNA vaccines for infectious diseases will be a prime area of focus in 2022.
- Digital operating room efficiency solutions: Operating rooms (ORs) driving approximately 60% of revenue in the average hospital. Digital Operating Room Efficiency solutions will enable hospitals to clear their elective surgery backlogs faster while recovering lost revenues; thus also helping medtech companies gain from additional volumes of elective surgeries.
- Ambulatory surgery centres: ASCs have very different needs and budgets than larger health systems or even hospitals. Solution offerings designed for hospitals are not likely to resonate with ASCs, requiring a rethink of product portfolio for medtech companies – orthopedic companies are leading the way in how this should be done.
- Bedside imaging: Portable Ultrasound and Mobile CT & MRI equipment have demonstrated the ability to improve patient outcomes by detecting anomalies and regions of interest quickly thereby saving critical time and scaling up procedure volumes.
- Clinical lab consulting services: COVID-19 accelerated the consumerization and adoption of virtual care delivery services. Healthcare services are being provided by non-traditional providers such as physician assistants in non-traditional venues like retail medical clinics, urgent care centres.
- At-home clinical trial services: At home clinical trial services include components of remote monitoring, telemedicine, nursing services, DTP & DFP services, patient delivery hubs/ depots for the supply of drugs, clinical trial management systems to facilitate clinical trial data management from different sites in real-time.
- Behavioural health management solutions: The COVID-19 pandemic is the catalyst for the adoption of digital solutions for behavioural health management across the world. Shortages in staff are making the demand for virtual care tools extremely urgent. Telehealth, iCBT, virtual reality, chatbots among other solutions hold strong promise in ensuring patients continue to get access to affordable and timely care.
- Remote patient monitoring platforms enable intervention when disease metrics fall beyond optimal values, thereby addressing the challenge of monitoring patients between doctor visits. Growing patient familiarity (with the use of RPM for virtual visits) and the ongoing trend of moving care to the home, will see higher growth in the RPM platforms for chronic disease management.
- Digital therapeutics: Payers and providers are pressed for legitimate alternatives to expensive medication for their patient population. Life sciences (LS) companies are trying to enhance patients’ treatment experiences and find new biomarkers that aid drug discovery in the long run.
