Which research antibody companies are growing?

By Lucy Gibson

November 1, 2023

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The size of the research antibody market is vast, with over 6 million antibodies and 300 suppliers.

Today we take a deep dive into this space, examining antibody company share trends.

We focus our analysis on three companies outside of the top five who have caught our attention with impressive growth in the market.

Read on to discover what we found…

What life science market data did we use for this analysis?

Product citations provide a reliable marker of market share – giving insight into past sales and a leading indicator for future purchasing decisions. 

Our complete citation-based antibody database comprises over 4 million citations from 333 life science manufacturers. 

For this particular supplier share analysis, we drew on antibody data covering the past 9 years. This dataset covers primary antibodies, secondary antibodies, polyclonal, monoclonal and recombinant products to give a comprehensive view of the market. 

An overview of the research antibody market leaders

Including:

• Abcam
• Cell Signaling Technology
• Thermo Fisher Scientific
• MilliporeSigma
• Santa Cruz Biotechnology

Impressively, the top five research antibody suppliers claim 65% of the total market as of 2022. In fact, the same suppliers have retained their position in the top five for the past nine years.

When we last shared analysis for research antibody supplier share data over on our blog, we found that Abcam and Cell Signaling Technology were vying for top position. These industry leaders remain in the top two spots in 2022. Abcam maintained their top position, with 21% of the market.

Joining Abcam and Cell Signaling Technology in the top five are big hitters Thermo Fisher Scientific, with their Invitrogen Antibodies brand, MilliporeSigma and Santa Cruz Biotechnology, respectively.

We will be interested to continue tracking the performance of these companies, and seeing how they shape the market.

However, today we are shifting the focus onto three companies who are growing their market share significantly and may be set to break into the top 5 or 10 in the future.

Which research antibody suppliers are showing significant growth?

Taking a step back to look beyond the top five leaders, we found the growth of other suppliers have impacted the rankings of the top 10 over the years.

So, who are these potential challengers to the antibody market leaders?

BioLegend – significant antibody share growth over many years

Back in 2016, we predicted BioLegend would rise through the ranks. Over the years we have seen this predicted growth play out.

BioLegend’s market share has seen an impressive trajectory, taking them from the 9th most cited antibody supplier in 2013 to 6th in 2022.

Over on our blog, we have recently commented on BioLegend’s position as the leading antibody company in immunology. Similarly, we have seen growth for BioLegend in cancer research, showcasing their success in specific markets to support their overall trajectory.

As a company they focus on a product development strategy which utilises ‘technology licensing, collaborations and internal hybridoma development’. This appears to be working for the industry leader. Their strong performance also explains their $5.25 billion acquisition by Perkin Elmer.

We have noted, however, that their position in the market has remained fixed since 2019 and their growth may be slowing.  We will be interested to see if this reagent supplier manages to break into the top five in the future.

ABclonal – rapid growth in market share

Since 2016, we’ve seen significant growth in antibody market share for ABclonal that has captured our attention. They now rank as the 11th most cited antibody vendor in 2022, with over 1% of the market. 

We also noticed they ranked as the 8th most cited antibody supplier specifically in China in 2022, perhaps suggesting their growth is being driven in part by their success here. 

Drilling down into research area data we’ve recently analysed, we also noticed that ABclonal broke into the top 10 for the first time in the immunology market in 2022.

If ABclonal are able to maintain this consistent growth, we see no reason as to why they might not break into the top 10 overall in the future. 

GeneTex – Consistent growth over time

GeneTex have showcased steady growth over a long period. In the nine years worth of data we analysed for this blog, they have more than doubled their market share. 

Although this trajectory is not exponential like some other antibody companies, they have impressively grown from 20th position in 2013 to the 14th most cited supplier in 2022.

With a focus on quality, GeneTex has built dedicated facilities for recombinant antibody production in recent years. We’ve noticed this area has generated a lot of interest due to consistency in performance – in our recent top 100 most used research antibodies of 2022 blog, we reported on increasing use for recombinant antibodies.

Overall, our data suggests GeneTex are certainly one to watch, and a supplier that has stood the test of time.

Wrap-up and data download!

This analysis represents a small section of the antibody market, with many other suppliers seeing growth in the market.

We will certainly be revisiting the antibody market on our blog in the future to look into further company trends.

The three suppliers focused on in this blog have undoubtedly seen impressive growth over the years, and we’ll be interested to see whether their current trajectories continue and lead to disruption in the market. You can download data taking in their market share from 2013-2022 below.

If you’re interested in learning more about the research antibody market and the other big players do get in touch with the team!

Finally, stay tuned for our analysis into supplier share for the growth factor market and the kits market coming soon…

• Lucy and the CiteAb team