A new report by Frost & Sullivan predicts a spate of growth opportunities will usher healthcare and life sciences into a new normal amid long Covid.
The report, released last week, predicts the 10 top growth opportunities in the industry and suggests that, with the healthcare consumerism boom, global revenues will hit $2.7 trillion by 2025. Compiled by a team of analysts, the report is based on ongoing research and polling leading pharma, medical device and digital health solution providers, Nitin Naik, healthcare and life sciences global business leader at Frost & Sullivan, said in an email.
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The pandemic is driving innovation in many ways, according to report, and it’s become a permanent feature that industry leaders must navigate, Naik said.
The Frost & Sullivan report asserts that the 10 highlighted growth opportunities will impact three drivers of change: precision care, the hospital to home movement and digital front doors.
In the area of precision care, multi-omics, which involves evaluating multiple sets of biological data from various sources such as the genome and microbiome, was predicted to gain traction in an era of big data. Among the companies to watch in this area, according to Frost & Sullivan, is Freenome. The diagnostics developer landed a $290 million investment from Roche in January. The investment comes as Freenome prepares to bring to market a test that detects the biological and genetic signs of cancer before a malignancy could be otherwise detected with currently available tests.
Also in precision care, the role of RNA therapeutics is expanding, such as in the treatment of rare diseases and cancer and preventive medicine.
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“The remarkable success of mRNA vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic has made RNA therapeutics an attractive segment,” the report noted.
Frost & Sullivan’s analysis suggested there are growth opportunities in two other areas of precision care as well: digital operating room efficiency solutions and ambulatory surgery centers. As hospitals face staffing shortages and backlogs in elective surgeries caused by the pandemic, the report finds there’s an increasing need to improve efficiency, including in surgery workflow. Outside hospital walls, ambulatory surgery centers are seeing higher acuity patients due to demand during the pandemic and a push by payers to lower the cost of care, according to Frost & Sullivan’s analysis.
The report also names at-home clinical trial services as a segment that’s ripe for growth. This follows a push by the Food and Drug Administration and others to promote a more patient-centric approach for study participation and data collection. Digitization of clinical trials is also making it easier to provide services and collect data outside an institutional setting.
The overall trend in healthcare is that consumer expectations for at-home and virtual care of all types are here to stay.
After the onset of the pandemic, 2020 saw a sharp rise in people seeking mental health services virtually. And Frost & Sullivan’s analysis predicts continued growth in digital health solutions for behavioral health management in the years ahead, projecting a compound annual growth rate of 18.5% from 2020 to 2025.
The report also sees much growth potential with remote patient monitoring platforms as people become more familiar with the platforms and get used to receiving more of their care at home.
“Patients will expect virtual care to be provided holistically by using these platforms,” Naik said. “So vendors have to integrate the platforms into telehealth/virtual care to provide a seamless digital experience for chronic care management.”
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