Lab Automation Software Market - Growth, Trends, and Forecasts (2022 - 2027)

The Lab Automation Software Market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 8.15% during the forecast period (2022 to 2027).

Key Highlights

• Automation is used in various life science applications, from proteomics to systems biology. Automating routine laboratory procedures for using dedicated workstations and software to program instruments allows associate scientists and technicians to think creatively about the implications of their experimentation and to design useful follow-up projects or develop alternative approaches to their work instead of spending their days performing tasks with tedious repetition.
• The integration of robotics and automation is rapidly increasing, owing to enhanced productivity and mitigated laboratory operational costs. It is likely to boost market growth over the forecast period. The progress in understanding and the discovery of the nature of life, including the polymerase chain reaction (PCR), splice genes, and means of sequencing, are on the rise, which may propel the market growth.
• Additionally, the experts have credited automation as a crucial solution for the rapid increase in the number of clinical trials. With digitalization and automation, scientists were able to automate the whole process, which resulted in fewer contaminations, digital data recording, and faster processing of the data. This reduced the time taken by each trial significantly.
• Automation plays a key role in helping laboratories maximize efficiency, simplify operations and establish a scalable and sustainable approach to minimize disruption to the services they provide and the patients they serve. However, The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic worsened many of the existing challenges labs face with staffing shortages, improving TAT, and reducing diagnostic testing errors.
• The cost to set lab automation modules, including software, is on the higher side and discourages small enterprises. This factor is expected to hamper the market growth over the forecast period.

Key Market Trends

Laboratory Information Management System Expected to Have Largest Market Share

• The laboratory information management system industry exhibited robust growth over the past five years as laboratories grappled with an increase in sample volumes, partly due to the increased demand for diagnostic testing from the burgeoning elderly population.
• Industry operators have particularly focused on developing software that assists with operational issues, such as data security and regulatory compliance. This market is driven by certain factors, such as the rising pressure to comply with regulations, a growing need to integrate healthcare systems, a shift from legacy systems to commercial off-the-shelf LIMS solutions, and technological advancements in LIMS products.
• Moreover, the funding for tests, such as genome and DNA, has led to an increase in laboratory information and data. Therefore, the rising practice of genome study is favoring the market growth. Associated advantages, such as high precision and elimination of manual data transcription errors, are also anticipated to provide a boost to the market.
• According to NIH (National Institutes for Health), Human genome funding by the NIH was around 4.43 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, which is estimated at 4.55 billion U.S. dollars in 2022. such funding is also anticipated to boost the market.
• Northern Ireland's Minister of Health recently announced the launch of a new GBP 40 million Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS) that will significantly improve the delivery of clinical diagnostic services in key areas of healthcare.

Asia Pacific is Expected to be the Fastest Growing Market

• Asia-Pacific is the fastest-growing region for lab automation software, owing to the rapid growth in the pharmaceuticals market in this region. The growth can be attributed to the increased investment in pharmaceutical research and development in this region.​
• For instance, in May 2022, US pharmaceutical company Pfizer set up its first global drug development center in Asia at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras Research Park, India. The company has invested USD 20 million in the center to develop innovative formulations, small molecules, and active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs).
• Also, in February 2022, Beroni Group, an Australia-based biopharmaceutical company, signed a contract to build a new R&D center in China's Zhuhai National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone. These expansion initiatives and investments are expected to boost the market growth in the region.​
• Furthermore, this region is ideal for conducting pharmaceutical research due to the large pool of heterogeneous population groups, unlike other continents. This region is considered the most preferred to outsource pharmaceutical research, owing to the availability of skilled labor and lower cost required to develop drugs. ​
• Additionally, the companies in the other regions face stringent regulations and lengthy timelines, further escalating the project cost. Therefore, North American companies are shifting toward CRO (contract research organization) partnership, which has benefited this region the most to get more research projects. As time and the budget are the most crucial factors for the development, drug companies are opting for automated lab software that can reduce the errors, cost, and time-related to the discovery of the drug.​
• For instance, in October 2021, GC Labs, a Korea-based clinical diagnostics company, introduced WASPLab, the first microbiology Total Laboratory Automation system in Korea. The solution automatically processes the steps from sample receipt to inoculation, culture, and interpretation, which had previously been conducted manually. In particular, it automatically interprets the culture as positive or negative. It allows test staff to double-check images on the monitor before reporting the final results to clinical professionals.

Competitive Landscape

The Lab Automation Software Market is neither highly competitive nor does it have a limited number of players. There are other newer technologies in the pipeline through which routine laboratory processes, such as testing and screening, are automated. Automation tools can process concurrent requests in real time, showing marked improvement in productivity and throughput.

• March 2022 - Scispot, a Y Combinator-backed life science lab informatics startup, introduces Labsheets to assist life science labs in moving beyond non-scientific spreadsheets and outdated lab information management systems. Labsheets is a no-code relational database product explicitly designed for life science labs to support their data management, sample tracking, audit trail, automated report creation, and integration requirements. Scispot's goal with Labsheets is to empower life science labs by reducing the time they spend managing data in spreadsheets, allowing lab professionals to design and automate workflows and bring scientific breakthroughs to market faster.
• September 2021 - Veeva Vault LIMS is a new cloud application from Veeva Systems designed to modernize quality control (QC) lab operations. By incorporating Vault LIMS into Veeva Vault Quality Suite, manufacturing organizations can seamlessly connect their lab operations with the broader quality ecosystem. This will speed up the batch release and lower inventory costs by streamlining sample management, test execution, and lab investigation processes.
• July 2021 - LabVantage Solutions, Inc has launched the 8.7 edition of its flagship LabVantage LIMS designed to provide a secure self-service web portal for the lab's external clients. With the upgraded LabVantage LIMS 8.7, customers can extend appropriate access rights outside the laboratory via the Portal while protecting their valuable and sensitive data, eschewing the need for manual requests for tests and other services.
• July 2021 - Promium, L.L.C., a provider of LIMS software for analytical testing laboratories, launched a new version of Element LIMS laboratory software. A comprehensive laboratory information management system, Element LIMS manages analytical and operational activities across the laboratory. Element LIMS version 7 includes feature enhancements, a redesigned user interface, and a new development framework, all targeted to increase laboratory performance and compliance significantly.

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