Protein therapeutics have completely revolutionized the healthcare segment, greatly influencing the study and treatment of human diseases by conferring precise targeting ability to therapeutic modalities. Considering their vast potential, close to 50% of the top selling drugs in 2023 were protein therapeutics. Owing to the benefits of protein-based therapeutics, such as target specificity, biological compatibility, reduced toxicity and diverse applicability, a notable surge in the need for protein expression systems has been observed in recent years. The recent advancements in the field of protein expression, coupled with the launch of novel expression systems have emerged as the key drivers for the growing adoption of protein expression solutions in the overall pharma market. Further, over 6500 patents related to protein expression were granted in 2023.
The protein expression in the pharmaceutical industry involves several steps, including transcription and translation processes to produce protein in different prokaryotes and eukaryotes host organisms. The following figure presents the schematic representation of protein expression from design to large scale production.
Gene Identification: The process starts with identifying the gene that codes for the desired protein i.e. gene of interest. This can be done through various techniques such as PCR, DNA sequencing or gene synthesis.
Vector Construction: Vector construction involves designing and assembling a DNA molecule (vector) that carries the gene encoding the protein of interest along with regulatory elements necessary for protein expression.
Transformation / Transfection: The expression vector is introduced into the host organism (bacterial, yeast, insect, algal, cell-free or mammalian cells) through transformation (for bacteria and yeast) or transfection (for mammalian cells).
Expression of Target Protein: The host cells are cultured under optimized conditions such as such as temperature, pH, inducer concentration and growth media, allowing them to grow and express the target protein.
Isolate / Purify / Characterize: Once the functional protein is expressed at the desired level, the host cells are isolated or harvested. This involves cell lysis to release intracellular proteins or secretion of proteins into the culture medium.
Large-scale Production: When the proteins are successfully active, the processes are scaled up to meet the demands of large-scale research or industrial applications, ensuring the production of functional proteins in substantial quantities.
Recent protein expression market trends showcase a growing emphasis on cell free protein expression systems, advanced bioinformatics, and the rise of the protein expression market for kits and reagents. Patients are increasingly seeking personalized therapies, stimulating the demand for customizable and scalable protein expression platforms. The following figure presents some of the leading protein expression systems providers captured in the report along with the information on certain relevant parameters.
Protein Expression: Current Market Landscape
Stakeholders in this domain offer various types of protein expression systems, vectors, competent cells and kits and reagents, across different application areas. Most of the companies offer protein expression for research applications, due to their extensive use in early-stage discovery, lead candidate screening and in vivo studies. Owing to the low cost and ease of scale-up, majority of the protein expression providers offer prokaryotic expression systems, followed by mammalian systems. The following figure presents the distribution of the key protein expression providers based on the type of protein expression systems.
Growing Protein Expression Market: More Than 45% Of Protein Expression Providers are Large and Very Large Players
The current protein expression market landscape is fragmented, featuring the presence of companies across various geographical locations, which claim to have the required expertise to provide novel protein expression systems for protein production. Examples of key players in the protein expression industry include, Agilent Technologies, Ajinomoto Bio-Pharma Services, Aldevron, Cayman Chemical, Eurofins CALIXAR, GenScript Biotech, Lonza, Merck KGaA, New England Biolabs, QIAGEN, Sartorius, Synbio Technologies, Thermo Fisher Scientific and WuXi Biologics. Most of the players were established pre-1980; further, the growing demand for protein-based drugs has prompted various start-ups to enter in this domain. Further, majority of the protein expression providers are headquartered in North America; of these, majority are large players. Within Europe, France and Germany have emerged as the key hubs offering protein expression related products and services. The following figure presents the distribution of the key protein expression providers based on their location of headquarters.
Want additional details on the market? Access our “Protein Expression Market” Report.
Key Industry Drivers And Restraints In The Protein Expression Market
The global protein expression market size growth is primarily attributed to the emergence of personalized and precision therapies over the last few years. In addition, the technological advancements in protein expression, including novel expression systems, microfluidics, novel expression hosts, and enhanced genome editing techniques, are optimizing the efficiency of protein expression process and providing a competitive edge to the players engaged in the protein expression market. Further, the increasing partnerships among various biotechnology companies, academic institutions, and research organizations are facilitating knowledge exchange, technology transfer, and joint research and development efforts in order to accelerate protein expression product development.
However, the protein expression industry is not without substantial restraints which hinder its growth. The industry is highly volatile and subjective to frequent changes. For instance, high capital investment remain as hurdles for industry players. This creates a challenge for the protein expression providers to keep up with the evolving market, leading to an added pressure of lagging behind. Further, protein expression involves complex biological processes and requires expertise in molecular biology, cell culture and protein purification, which can limit its adoption and scalability, particularly for companies having insufficient technical know-how and resources. The following figure presents some of the key market drivers and restraints in the protein expression industry.
Protein Expression Market Trends: Mammalian Expression System to Drive Market Growth
The global market opportunity associated with the protein expression industry is estimated to be USD 2.7 billion in 2024, driven by the rapidly increasing demand for protein therapeutics. In terms of type of protein expression systems, the market for mammalian expression system is anticipated capture the majority of the share during the forecast period, 2024-2035. This market growth is primarily attributed to the fact that mammalian expression systems are extensively used in the production of biotechnology products due to their ability to offer superior posttranslational processing and functional protein activity.
Regional Protein Expression Market Trends: Asia-Pacific Holds the Largest Share
The increasing prevalence of various diseases within Asia-Pacific underscores the growing demand for protein-based therapeutics, thereby contributing significantly to the overall protein expression market. Market in Asia-Pacific is likely to grow at a considerable rate as this region is highly favorable in terms of producing high-quality products for global markets. This can be attributed to lower operational costs, availability of skilled workforce, and well-developed supply chain and logistics networks in this region. However, the protein expression market in Europe is expected to grow at a relatively lower CAGR of 8.4%, during the forecast period. Within Europe, Germany and France are anticipated to capture the majority of the share during the forecast period. The following figure presents the distribution of the protein expression market by key geographical regions.
Future Perspectives and Conclusion
Over the past few years, numerous collaborations have been initiated between various organizations to further advance the market. For instance, in March 2024, Merck expanded its protein expression capabilities through the opening of a new bioprocessing production center for the development and production of biologics, in South Korea, China. Moreover, in July 2023, Sartorius acquired Polyplus in order to expand its portfolio beyond transfection reagents in other technologies such as plasmid design and protein and plasmid manufacturing, expand its upstream portfolio for gene therapies. In addition, at the same time, Lonza launched a new TheraPRO CHO Media System in order to optimize the production of therapeutic proteins from GS-CHO cell lines.
Similar initiatives undertaken by other leading industry players are representative of the attempts to expand its capabilities and capacities to transform and accelerate biologics discovery, development, and manufacturing in the coming years. Moreover, the stakeholders are actively working towards the development of novel protein expression systems with reduced costs in
order to widen the consumer basis. It is worth mentioning that inclusion of computational tools in combination with multi-omics has also demonstrated the potential to play a significant role in improving protein expression process. Driven by these technological advancements, coupled with the continuous collaborations inked by leading stakeholders, it is anticipated that the protein expression market will grow at a healthy rate in the foreseeable future.
Author’s Bio
Akarshika Singh is a business research analyst and competitive intelligence professional. She is highly skilled at generating useful insights from unstructured / structured datasets. As an experienced analyst at Roots Analysis, Akarshika has assisted several clients across multiple industry verticals within the healthcare domain. These verticals include, medical devices / technologies, digital healthcare services and various drugs / disease indications. To date, she has contributed to over five full length market research projects.
Email: [email protected]
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/akarshika-singh/
