Cell Separation Technology Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Growing demand for regenerative medicines - Regenerative medicine is a relatively new field of study in medicine, with the possibility to treat organs and replacement of tissues in humans. Regenerative medicine seeks to repair injured body components using biomaterials, medicines, and cells. Cell treatments and regenerative medicine offer an opportunity to significantly improve the quality of life for many people suffering from chronic illnesses.
  
  As the need for breakthrough treatments to address debilitating medical illnesses grows, firms are developing revolutionary cell separation procedures. To illustrate, in October 2023, Akadeum Life Sciences released a preview of its Alerion system that uses Akadeum’s ground-breaking Buoyancy Activated Cell Sorting microbubble technology to provide a closed system for extracting T cells from a leukopak.

• Rising healthcare spending - The global cell separation technology market is predicted to grow significantly during the forecast period. This can be attributed to the high per capita healthcare expenditure. As per predictions carried out by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the OECD countries spent average 9.7 % of the GDP in 2021 on healthcare as compared to 8.8 % in 2019. Developing countries like China are also focused on developing advanced technologies, for instance, Lion TCR secured an investment of USD 40 million from Guangzhou Industrial Investment Fund, in June 2023, for the development of solid tumor treatment with m RNA-encoding TCR-T cell therapy. Therefore, rising investment from public and private sources is set to boost the cell separation technology market growth.

• Surging cases of cancer across the globe - According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there were approximately 20 million new cancer cases and 9.7 million related deaths in 2022.  CAR T-cell treatment has shown potential results in immunotherapy for leukemia and lymphoma patients.  According to the American Society of Hematology, CAR T-cell therapy has helped 76% of patients achieve remission.  Furthermore, it has replaced traditional flow cytometry called fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), which is a comparatively slow, complex, and expensive separation process, with a low cell recovery rate. Despite being prohibitively expensive, it is expected to gain further adoption during the forecast period.
  
  It has become essential that manufacturing and workflow methods advance to offer these treatments to all individuals. For instance, the microbubble technique isolates T cells quickly and efficiently at a lower cost than current methods. Thus, there is potential for enhancing the efficacy and affordability of CAR T-cell therapy and a wide range.

Challenges

• Surge in the number of challenges in manufacturing - Numerous challenges, including a lack of tools and scientific understanding of critical concepts, render it challenging to scale up production to produce a large number of cells.
  
  At the beginning of the development process research, very little attention is given to the scalability of production and associated cost decisions that may occasionally hinder the scaling-up process. It is difficult to switch from this scholarly perspective to a commercial-grade manufacturing method due to current technological limitations and concerns about potential changes to the manufacturing procedure that might impact the relevant cell properties that provide them with the desired activity.

• Growing ethical & political consideration.

• High price of cell separation technology - Cell separation technologies might require considerable investments in equipment and consumables, in addition to continuing operational expenditures. This might hinder uptake, especially in smaller research centers or laboratories with fewer resources.