Following the release of Hologic’s and Thermo Fisher Scientific’s quarterly results;

James Spencer, Data Scientist at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view on the COVID-19 testing market:

“As the world rushes to become vaccinated, our strategy turns from infection mitigation to achieving herd immunity. The pandemic and the multiple lockdowns that followed have had a huge effect on the markets of the world, butchering some industries, while allowing others to boom. The medical device field has been no exception; however, different subsegments have been affected differently.

“Last year saw the onset of the virus in the western world and all the lockdowns and shutdowns that followed. This meant that the field of elective surgeries saw its sales numbers tank, as everyone was staying home and surgeries were postponed. Some companies saw as much as double-digit declines in their sales segments.

“However, these same decisions led to a growth in the testing market. As COVID-19 tore across the world, correctly identifying who had the virus was of paramount importance to enforce quarantines and stay-at-home orders. PCR, antigen, and antibody tests skyrocketed from their original workflows to having to produce hundreds of millions, if not billions of tests very quickly. This explosive growth won’t continue forever though.

“With Hologic and Thermo Fisher reporting diagnostics revenue growth of 390.6% and 150% respectively, it’s somewhat disappointing to hear that their CEOs are bearish about the future of their markets. However, this is due to how these markets sprung up as a response to an unprecendented situation. While they may still report modest growth numbers in future, as more and more of the world becomes immunized, the demand for tests will decrease, until they are no longer needed.”