COVID-19 Test Market: $33BN in Revenues in 2021, Future Still a Guess

Kalorama has just completed a report on the COVID-19 in vitro diagnostic testing market.  2021 was a year in which point-of-care antigen tests, lab-based PCR tests, rapid PCR and even home tests were available to the market.  Also antibody tests, NGS tests and other tests were brought to bear in diagnosing cases.

The scourge of COVID-19 continued to occupy laboratories and the in vitro diagnostic (IVD) companies that serve them throughout 2021 and into 2022.   Testing already present in large labs and clinics entered the home last year, which added to market revenues. Kalorama Information estimates the value for COVID-19 tests in 2021 reached an estimated $33.2 billion, up 65% from 2020.

This growth in any other market would suggest revenues in 2022 and forward would be present and that companies could expect growing market opportunity.  With COVID-19 such an increase last year only increases the uncertainty for this year.  Yet forecasting can be done in a variable way, with allowances for changes in cases.

At the time of writing there is a slight decrease in cases which might suggest a decrease in COVID-19 testing revenues, but we’ve been through this before. Predicting COVID-19 is not easy. For the past two years, the disease has confounded prediction. There are at least two schools of thought about 2022. One is that COVID, as a result of the highly contagious Omicron and Delta variants, exposed enough of the population to have antibodies, and this along with strong vaccination rates and boostering, makes COVID-19 a still present but waning disease. Even in this optimistic scenario, testing will be at a high enough volume to sustain a market and will remain necessary throughout 2022, but there would be a decline in revenues expected.

There will still be a COVID-19 testing market in 2023.  Rule-out will still be a factor in the coming years, and concern of breakout variants and infections will be enough to keep tests reasonably in supply.

At the time of writing there is a slight decrease in cases which might suggest a decrease in COVID-19 testing revenues, but we’ve been through this before.

A more pessimistic disease scenario would be that there are other variants that prove to be contagious, and vaccines do not provide enough long term protection and the population isn’t boostering at high levels. This would represent another Q4 like wave and might suggest that such waves will be with us for some time. The second scenario obviously would create COVID-19 testing revenues and volumes higher than 2021.

Kalorama’s most recent report, COVID-19 Testing Market Update, 2022, provides market sizing and estimates for COVID-19 tests with some discussion of market impacts of COVID-19.  The scourge of COVID-19 continued to occupy laboratories and the in vitro diagnostic (IVD) companies that serve them throughout 2021 and into 2022.  Testing already present in large labs and clinics entered the home last year, which added to market revenues.