New Report Profiles Over 90 Significant Competitors in Point-of-Care Testing

ARLINGTON, Va., May 21, 2020 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- A new report from Kalorama Information, a market research publisher owned by Science and Medicine Group, details over 90 companies involved in the point of care test industry. Given the need to diagnose patients quickly and the closure of many hospital facilities for preliminary testing, COVID-19 has made point-of-care more important than in the past, according to the market researcher.

Diagnostic tests performed outside the central laboratory or decentralized testing is generally known as point-of-care (POC). Over the years, the increasing introduction of transportable, portable, and handheld instruments has resulted in the migration of POC testing from the hospital environment to a range of medical environments including the workplace, home, disaster care and most recently, convenience clinic.

"Although COVID-19 is dominating attention, point-of-care tests in other areas are finding uses," said Bruce Carlson Publisher of Kalorama Information. "For instance, Abbott has seen increased usage of its Freestyle Libre, given social distancing."

Abbott's product was helped by an FDA rule changed that allowed its use in critical care patients.

Among the top companies are:

• Exact Sciences
• Arkray
• BD
• Thermo Fisher
• Radiometer
• Abbott
• Roche
• Siemens Healthineers
• LifeScan
• Ascensia Diabetes Care
• Dexcom
• Beckman Coulter
• Medtronic

90 other point of test companies are profiled in the report.

POC testing may be performed by laboratory personnel, but often it is performed by non-laboratory personnel such as physicians, nurses, assistants in medical offices, emergency medical technicians (EMTs), medics, pharmacists, and the patients themselves (self-testing). Some POC tests are manual tests, often performed with technologies based on dipsticks or strips, lateral flow cassettes, or other manual tests. There are also many small, portable instruments that have been developed for use in POC settings. With the advances in miniaturization and microfluidics that have occurred in recent years, a growing number of small, handheld devices are reaching the POC market for a range of different testing applications.

The menu for point-of-care testing continues to expand. The traditional set of POC tests includes blood glucose testing, blood gas and electrolytes analysis, rapid coagulation testing, rapid cardiac markers diagnostics, drugs of abuse screening, urine strips testing, pregnancy testing, fecal occult blood analysis, hemoglobin diagnostics, infectious disease testing and cholesterol screening. In the past 5-10 years the following tests were added: HbA1c, B-Type Natriuretic Peptide (BNP), whole-blood lactate, D-Dimer, C-Reactive Protein (CRP). The future holds even more advancement of POC tests and devices including tests for cancer, molecular assays and phone enabled tests of all kinds.

COVID-19 tests are the latest addition, available as both molecular point of care and antibody tests.

Kalorama Information's report can be found at: https://kaloramainformation.com/product/the-worldwide-market-for-point-of-care-poc-diagnostics-7th-edition/

About Kalorama Information
For more than 30 years, Kalorama Information has been a leading publisher of market research in healthcare areas, including in vitro diagnostics (IVD), biotechnology, healthcare, medical devices, and pharmaceuticals.

SOURCE Kalorama Information