Single-Use Budgets In 2013: Biotech Industry Council Indicates Industry Will Expand Spending On Key Products

By Eric Langer, president and managing partner, BioPlan Associates, Inc.

By Eric Langer, president and managing partner, BioPlan Associates, Inc.

Disposable products continue to be a hot topic in biomanufacturing, as they increasingly penetrate clinical- and commercial-stage manufacturing and are sought after for their process efficiencies. In fact, when we asked the 450 global subject matter experts and senior participants on our Biotechnology Industry Council™ to identify the critical trends in bioprocessing for 2013, 22% cited aspects associated with implementation of single-use system integration.  These ranked narrowly behind need for downstream processing optimization, and analytical methods development (each at 24%).

By measuring specifically how bioprocessing facilities budget for these single-use products, we can measure actual trends in adoption. For several years, we have tracked facility spending on various disposable products through our annual reports. This year, preliminary results from our 10^th Annual Report and Survey of Biopharmaceutical Manufacturers indicate that some of the most popular single-use products on the market are seeing rapidly increasing funding levels.