Global Epigenetics Market - top trends, drivers, & forecasts (2018-2026)

Epigenetics is the study of heritable changes in gene function not involving changes in the DNA sequence such as changes in a chromosome, phenotypic affecting gene activity and expression. The sources of heritable changes may be external from environmental factors, or internal factors such as age, disease and others. Examples of epigenetics are DNA methylation and histone modification, which alters genes expression without altering the DNA sequence.

The drivers of epigenetics market are growing risk factors and the associated increase in cases of cancer, increase in the R&D activities, developing pharmaceutical, and biotechnology sectors, application expanse of epigenetics and others. The development of high sensitive and selective tests, instrumentation and a concurrent rise in computational power is driving a massive adoption. The advancements such as the development of DNA and RNA modifying enzymes such as acetylases, methyltransferases, reverse transcriptase, ligases, and other protein-modifying enzymes has generated tremendous enthusiasm and concurrent faster market adoption. The DNA methylation analysis still remains the most extensively used technology in this area.

The global epigenetics market is expected to reach US$ 2,611.57 Mn in 2025 from US$ 991.45 in 2017.

The global market is estimated to grow with approx. 18.25% CAGR (Compound Annual Growth Rate) during the year 2018-2026. 

The Europe market is anticipated to grow with a CAGR of 16.78% over the forecast years of 2018-2026. Switzerland, France, Germany, UK, Italy, Spain and the rest of Europe are the geographic analyzed for the Europe epigenomics market.

The Asia-Pacific market is expected to register the highest CAGR of 20.57% over the forecast period of 2018-2026. Japan currently leads the Asia-Pacific epigenomics market in terms of revenue generation.

North America market is anticipated to rise at a CAGR of 17.51% during the forecast period of 2018-2026. The presence of a large number of biotech and pharmaceutical manufacturers gives an edge to this region as compared to other regional markets. The growing government support for biotechnology and growing partnership between academia and industry is another driver of growth. 

High growth of biotech and growing number of start-ups are driving the development of proprietary technology. According to national venture capital association, the biotechnology industry received the second largest amount of venture capital for the year 2019 and ended with a 17% rise in dollars as compared with the previous year.

• Increase in the prevalence of cancer and other chronic diseases; need for better cancer therapies
• Growth in personalized medicine
• Increase in the ageing population

• Decrease in the sequencing costs and time
• Growth in funding for research & development
• Increasing importance of epigenetic technology

The important driver increasing growth in the global epigenomic market is an increase in the prevalence of cancer and other chronic diseases. Cancer and other chronic diseases have common risk factors such as ageing and unhealthy lifestyles (for instance: smoking, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, obesity, and alcohol misuse).

The demand for personalized medicine is increasing and is expected to grow in future with a CAGR of more than 10%. The development of whole genome technology, companion diagnostics, and the growing number of retail clinics are some reasons for its growth. This will, in turn, increase the demand for diagnostics such as epigenetic analysis to diagnose diseases of individuals and chart out customized treatment plans according to an individual's diagnostic response. Personalized medicine results in the better treatment of patients as epigenetic analysis allow understanding which medicine will have better effects and which will not because every biological system has different genomes, which react differently to a particular medicine.

The global expenditure on R&D has shown consistent growth in the last 20 years. With the economies of developing countries growing faster than that of developed countries, several institutes and research facilities are being set up in the developing countries. The increase in R&D translates to an expansion of facilities in fields like clinical research and pharmaceutical research, which are all primary users of epigenetics as they require epigenetic equipment for diagnosing epigenetic alterations and providing drugs against it. Thus, the growth in these areas will lead to a rise in demand for epigenetic equipment during the forecast period.

• DNA methylation
• Histone methylation & acetylation
• MicroRNA modification

• Diagnosis
• Drug discovery
• Therapy optimization
• Prognosis

• Oncology, hematology-oncology, cancer of an unknown primary site
• Neurology: mental retardation, Alzheimer’s disease, depression, other
• Cardiovascular: vascular disease, Heart failure, others
• Inflammatory & autoimmune disease: rheumatoid arthritis, Diabetes, Lupus, multiple sclerosis, inflammatory bowel diseases

• DNA methylation in cancer detection
• Identification of epigenetic biomarkers for diagnosis and prediction
• Mechanisms of epigenetic gene silencing

• Analysis of biological age
• Underwriting risk classifications
• Tobacco risk assessment
• Alcohol consumption
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Colon and breast cancer screening tests
• Depression
• Environmental exposures
• Radiation exposure

• Lung cancer
• Solid cancers
• Gastric cancer
• Breast cancer
• Haematological cancers
• Others

• Mental retardation
• Huntington’s disease
• Parkinson’s disease
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Depression

• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Diabetes
• Myelodysplastic syndromes
• Multiple sclerosis
• Obesity
• Inflammatory bowel diseases
• Lupus
• Other

• Solid cancers
• Haematological cancers

• DNA methylation for cancer detection
• Histone modification as a biomarker in cancer detection
• Histone methylation
• Histone acetylation
• Noncoding RNAs
• MiRNAs
• Detection of cell-free DNA (cfDNA)
• Detection of circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) in cancer diagnosis
• Chromatin remodeling

The European epigenetic market is moderately competitive and consists of several major players. In terms of market share, a few of the major players currently dominate the market. Some of the major players of the market are Merck & Co., Qiagen, Roche, Thermo Fisher Scientific, and Illumina Inc., among others:

• Abbott Laboratories
• Abcam
• Affymetrix
• Agilent Technologies
• Astellas Pharmaceuticals
• Bayer AG
• Bio-Rad
• Celgene Corp
• Centogene AG
• Cygenia GmbH
• Epigenomics AG
• Epigentek
• Diagenode
• Glaxosmithkline
• GRAIL
• Illumina Inc.
• Johnson & Johnson
• Laboratory Corp Of America Holdings
• Merck Millipore
• Merck Sharp & Dohme
• New England Biolabs
• Novartis Pharma AG
• Oncgnostics GmbH
• Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals Limited
• Qiagen
• PerkinElmer
• Roche Holding AG
• Rubicon Genomics
• Thermo Fischer Scientific
• Zymo Research

• North America and Asia-Pacific lead the market by capturing the largest revenue share
• Europe and Asia-Pacific are anticipated to be the most dynamic regional market currently
• Reagents and kits form a major part of the epigenomic market by product. Histone and DNA modifiers are the major types of reagents used
• Ready-to-use methylation kits are manufactured currently by mostly all of top twenty biotechnology companies
• Epigenetics diagnosis is a major part of the epigenomic market, and personalized medicines are showing a dynamic growth
• Oncology is the primary application, accounting for approximately 38% of the global epigenetics R&D market, while cardiovascular, autoimmune, metabolic, and neurodegenerative disorders are showing a better growth