Recent trends in IVD market

Indian diagnostic market is largely dominated by unorganized players and is expected to see a shift in dynamics, mainly due to the entry of online players backed by large companies. Competitive pricing and laboratory consolidation also seems to be the key trend that will shape this industry in the coming time.

During past 3-4 years, the market has observed a big change in consumer behavior. The focus of people on health has increased and the market focus has moved from solutions for ill patients (illness) to health-conscious consumers (wellness).

We have also seen a great shift in the digital adoption in healthcare with supportive government measures during and post pandemic. Also, the diagnostic segment has attracted funding from private equity companies/firms, which has motivated many startups to grow aggressively.

The market now seems to be divided into online and offline players, which has resulted into changing consumer behavior and rising competitive intensity. The online players have resulted into heightened competition in the market with disruptive price move strategy – focusing the business on wellness and routine testing. Several health-tech startups have also entered the market and are estimated to have received a huge funding from different investors. Their concept initially seems to focus on topline revenue in the diagnostic sector than business profitability.

New offline players have also entered the diagnostic space focusing their business driven from doctor referral and specialized testing. There seem to be more players in the market and consolidation of smaller laboratories by bigger diagnostic chains is expected to bring a lot of change in the diagnostic space and testing.

There is also a move towards consumerization of diagnostics. Consumers are expected to pick off-the- shelf wellness packages or routine check-ups. Diagnostic test aggregators are affecting the smaller players by attacking the budget wellness business.

Quality compliance along with turnaround time (TAT) is also a scoring point for the diagnostic labs. There are estimated one lakh labs in India of which only around a thousand had the NABL (National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories) accreditations pre-Covid. This number has gone up to 2500 labs during Covid-19 times and a positive trend on the increase in number of quality labs is expected in coming time.

Drone deliveries in diagnostics, is a new setting trend in context of sample transport that looks to be the future of reducing TAT and providing quick outcomes in product and sample delivery.

Drone deliveries of samples are expected to be cheaper and are set for big take-off with advantage of relaxed norms under the drone rules. There also seems to be a thrust by the government in creating special corridors for drone delivery where the commercial drone flyers would not require, remote pilot license to legally fly the drone. The process however now seems to be simplified, where only a remote pilot certificate would be needed which can be issued by a remote pilot training organization.

We are expecting a huge change in this segment where a spurt in delivery drone is expected in 12-18 months.

HORIBA moves as per market requirement. We are an agile organization to take care of customer needs as per the changing market dynamics. HORIBA continues to be a technology forerunner in the field of medical diagnostics.