Over the past few years, the prevalence of various chronic diseases and lifestyle diseases has been increasing, significantly. This, in turn, led to an increase in the demands for better treatment and diagnostic services such as point of care testing (POCT). According to the latest market intelligence report by BIS Healthcare, ‘Global Point of care testing Market- Analysis and Forecast (2017-2026),’ the global market for point of care testing can be segmented into devices, consumable & software, and other solutions. Moreover, the consumables/accessories segment dominated the market in the year 2017.
In March 2018, Personalised Diagnostic Developer, Mologic, and Fraunhofer Centre for Applied Photonics, announced about their partnership to develop a rapid point of care test to immediately diagnose bacterial urinary tract infections(UTIs) and any associated antibiotic susceptibility. The test leads to a step-changing improvement in informed, targeted prescription, addressing the incidence of antimicrobial resistance, as well as saving healthcare costs and time. The technology used in the test combines nanophotonic waveguides and microfluidics to determine the response of bacteria to minute quantities of antibiotics.
In February 2018, Alfa Scientific Designs, Inc. (ALFA), an innovative pioneer of rapid, point of care (POC) medical devices, had received US FDA 510 (k) clearance for instant view plus multi drug of abuse urine test. This simple cup DOA urine test features ALFA’s Driven Flow Technology. The simple cup is FDA 510(k) cleared for professional/ over the counter (OLA) and CLIA- waved use. The urine immunoassay identifies thirteen drugs of drug metabolites and offers competitive differentiation. These features are significant improvements to existing lateral flow immunoassay drug testing devices in the market.
In January 2018, PTS Diagnostics, a U.S. based manufacturer of point of care biometric testing devices, announced in a press release, that they are launching PTS Connect ProLink, a cloud-based biometric data collection and transfer software problems. The objective of PTS ProLink is to help the retail partners’ pharmacies and clinics to provide valuable health screening services to their customers. “PTS Connect ProLink, when combined with our proven point of care solutions, allow us to serve better both the healthcare providers and those impacted by chronic diseases’’ said Robert Huffstodt, president and CEO of PTS Diagnostics.
Geographically, North America is dominating the market for point of care testing, owing to the presence of supportive governmental regulations, and reimbursement policies. Moreover, Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region due to the incurring healthcare expenditure as well as the patients here are becoming more aware of the advantages of POCT. Further, the rise in the geriatric population along with the increased prevalence of chronic diseases is expected to increase the demands for POCT devices and thereby to drive up the growth of the market.
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