Bioreactors Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Automation and digitalization of bioreactors: The digital shift is enhancing the capabilities of bioreactors such as improving process control and mitigating human error. The integration of advanced sensors, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and the Internet of Things (ML) are boosting the performance of bioreactors, leading to faster development of biopharma solutions. For instance, the Georgia Institute of Technology reveals that automated bioreactor sampling systems can eliminate the cross-contamination of samples. Thus, the automation and digitalization of bioreactor systems are set to enable better scalability, simplify sampling, boost swift production, and cost-effectiveness of therapeutic solutions, and augment bioreactor adoption among biopharma companies.
• Increasing demand for biopharma solutions: The rising demand for biosimilars and biologics is positively influencing the sales of bioreactors, as they are essential components of biopharma solution production. The increasing prevalence of infectious and chronic disorders is augmenting a high demand for vaccines, monoclonal antibodies, therapeutic proteins, and gene therapies. The high demand directly creates pressure on production units, and to combat this issue many biopharma companies employ advanced bioreactors.
  
  Modern bioreactor systems can handle huge cell densities and complex production processes required for biologic and biosimilar manufacturing. For instance, in August 2023, Sartorius AG and Repligen Corporation collaboratively launched an integrated bioreactor system. The Repligen XCell ATF upstream intensification technology is integrated into Sartorius’s Biostat STR bioreactor. This innovative model is gaining traction among biopharma manufacturers as it simplifies intensified seed train and N perfusion implementation, enabling swift production.

Challenges

• Expensive advanced bioreactor systems: The high-tech bioreactor systems particularly automated and single-use models are costly due to their complex technologies. The capital required to manufacture such a complex system adds up to the overall product costs. This increased cost acts as a barrier to small-scale and medium-scale biopharma companies that are running on tight budgets. Overall high costs of advanced bioreactors can limit their adoption rates. 
• Strict and long approval processes: The stringent and lengthy product approval procedures hinder the introduction of new bioreactor technologies. As the bioreactors are vital devices used for chemical reactions to develop vaccinations, gene therapy, and antibodies, their validation is important. The strict regulatory policies for the approval and validation of bioreactor systems are time-consuming, which leads to their slow adoption and hampers the profits of bioreactors market players as they are not able to grab trending opportunities.