We as a human being surely have taken a long journey to be able to live in this current state of advance society as we know of today. Our ancestors who were literally living under a rock would never expect that we someday would successfully be able to form a functional, advance, and occasionally broken society that’s majorly driven by the usage of electricity—But for sure, we know we all starts from someplace, from someone, when we were born we inherit some part of our ancestors, we keep all the features that help us survive, and discard anything that doesn’t. After we found out that the DNA that we inherit, which contains the fundamental code of our biological body can help us to determine the best course of treatment in dealing with diseases. Thus, a new market of tailored medicine was born.
Growing Demand for Personalized Medicine
Personalized medicine, where tailored therapy is made available to patients with an understanding of the molecular basis of diseases, has become popular over the recent years. Genetic testing and genome sequencing are two of the most important tools that are used to understand the molecular basis of a disease. European countries are screened for several genetic diseases, as an early detection of these diseases can prevent the onset of symptoms, or minimize the severity of the disease. Genetic testing for cancer diagnosis can indicate the predisposition of the disease in the gene, before its actual manifestation. This type of diagnostic technique enables a person to take precautionary steps, and avoid possible risks in the future.
North America Market Domination
The genetic testing market is segmented by treatment type, diseases, technology, and geography. By geography, the market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East & Africa, and South America. Owing to the presence of well-established healthcare facilities and new discoveries in the field of genetic markers, North America dominates the genetic testing market. The Asia-Pacific market is expected to register the highest CAGR, as government and private firms are making significant investments in the healthcare industry. Over the last couple of years, to invest in the Japanese market, several mergers, acquisitions, and collaborations between companies have taken place.
The global genetic testing market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 11.76% to grow from US$4.620 billion in 2017 to US$5.783 billion in 2022. The global genetic testing demand is driven by a number of factors such as, aging global population, rising incidences of genetic and hereditary diseases, growing awareness, technological advancements and rise in application of genetic testing for early detection of various diseases.
With that market forecast above major player like 23andMe has been actively marketing their genetic testing services to create awareness and familiarity to mass public about genetic testing, they market their services as something that’s useful, interesting and applicable to possibly diagnose future diseases. But all of that also create new problems that we’re going to discuss in the next part.
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