News

Posted On: 01/26/2005

PAT Influencing Process Spectroscopy Market

The total worldwide market for process spectroscopy instrumentation is expected to grow from $178 million in 2004 to $232 million in 2009, at an average annual rate of 5.4%, according to a report due out this month by Business Communications Co., Inc. (Norwalk, Conn.). The market includes monitors operating in the ultraviolet and visible portions of the spectrum, dispersive near-infrared analyzers, Fourier Transform instruments operating in both the near- and mid-infrared portions of the spectrum, Raman spectrometers, as well as other instruments providing spectral information.

The report, “The Process Spectroscopy Market,” predicts that near-infrared (NIR) monitors will constitute the largest segment of the market in 2009, with sales of $71 million. This figure is expected to result from increased sales due to FDA’s PAT initiative.

The highest rate of growth of any instrument type is expected among Raman spectrometers, at 8% annually. Long considered an academic technology, Raman has made inroads into process monitoring, with its increasing acceptance as a PAT technique a significant factor in its growth.

The market for process instruments in pharmaceuticals is expected to have the highest growth of any application: 9.4% annually, over the five-year period. Sales into pharmaceutical markets are forecast at $45.5 million in 2009, making this market second only to the chemical and polymer industry, projected to reach $50 million.

Several trends are influencing market growth and dynamics, according to the report. There is an increasing tendency on the part of UV and visible systems manufacturers to develop cheaper, more portable versions of their high-end systems in response to competition from miniature spectrometers sold into the highly fragmented UV and visible market. Lower-cost Raman devices are available as well. Nevertheless, high-end systems, particularly in NIR, continue to dominate many process markets.

New technologies, however, have the potential to change that situation. Micro-electro-mechanical-systems (MEMS) technology offers the potential to make "spectrometry on a chip" possible, if not by 2009 then soon after, the report says. MEMS devices have already been employed in a portable near infrared (NIR) system. Acousto-optic tunable filters (AOTFs), which provide rapid and repeatable wavelength selection without the use of moving parts, are being produced commercially and are employed in NIR systems that sell in the $45,000 range — considerably cheaper than most NIR monitors. Increased use of MEMS and cheaper filters for NIR devices indicate that the process spectroscopy market ten years from now may be significantly different from today's market, with cheaper and more portable systems operating in many manufacturing applications.

The report also discusses the movement of the process spectroscopy instrument market to manufacturing operations offshore. New plants need hardware, and process spectroscopy monitors are seeing increased sales in many overseas locations.