Premature Infant Mortality, Microbiological Cell Development, and Unique Innovations Shaping the Incubators Markets

Medical incubators are medical devices that are primarily used for growing cell tissues and maintaining them in a favorable growth environment. Incubators exhibit major application in the healthcare industry, majorly in hospitals and birth centers to provide a controlled and protective environment for newborn babies. The application growth of hospital and birth centers are expected to register a growth at a CAGR of 7.53%, during the forecast period 2019-2025. Incubators are equipment in which babies are placed for protecting them from hospital-acquired infections. The preterm newborns require intensive care in the early hours of their life to adapt to the surroundings, these incubators help them during such hours. Preterm birth is defined as the birth of the baby before 37 weeks of gestation. And, preterm birth has been accorded as a global priority by researchers, donor organizations and the international health policy-makers. 

The number of newborn premature children are increasing which has supported the growing demand in the Incubators Market which held the market size of $318m in 2018. Also, the incubators market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 6.39% through the forecast period 2019-2025. 

The World Health Organization also signifies preterm birth as a major problem, and reports from the same suggest that 15 million babies are born preterm annually, and the stats are rising at a considerate rate.  Additionally, the organization also stated that preterm birth is one of the leading causes of death among the children under 5 years of age, this was responsible for around 1 million casualties among children each year. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, almost 2,600 children were reported dead after birth within the first 24 hours every day in 2016. Also, the same source suggested that 2.6 million children were not able to live beyond the first month of their birth. Among those children, more than 80% of the children died from treatable and preventable causes such as complications during delivery, low birth rate, hypothermic symptoms, infections such as pneumonia and sepsis, and premature birth. The child mortality rate in their first month accounts for 46% of all deaths among the children under five. Moreover, the children who survive, face a lifetime disability such as learning difficulty, visual and hearing impairments, and other physical or mental illness. Thus, incubators are essential to prevent and reduce the harmful effects of preterm birth. UNICEF said 386,000 were born on the first day of 2019, and 90% of the birth will be happening in under-developed regions. Stefan Peterson, the Associate Director and Chief of Health in the UNICEF said, “We are now entering the era when all the world’s newborns should have the opportunity to see the 22nd century.”Unfortunately, the children born in a less developed region with preterm illness are less likely to survive till the start of 2100. Therefore, an imperative need to establish a well-equipped infrastructure of incubator services all over the under-developed region is rising. There are multiple types of incubators such as microbiological incubators, bio-incubators, neonatal incubators, hatching incubators, culture incubators, and infant incubators. All of these incubators are majorly used in the healthcare industry, and the healthcare industry is one of the fastest-growing end-user vertical. Further, the growth in the healthcare industry is subjected to support its adjacent incubators market. 

Incubators market research report suggests that North America is the most lucrative region. The region grabbed 39% of the global incubators market share in 2018. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the infant mortality rate in the U.S. was 579.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2017.  North America accounted for a major regional share, owing to the rapid adoption rate of advanced technology, presence of major players, and growing awareness towards intensive childcare. 

Europe, on the other hand, is reflecting considerate opportunities in the incubators market, owing to increased disposable income and rising expenditure on the healthcare sector.  Moreover, the enormous potential lies in Asia-Pacific, due to the presence of some of the chief populous economies in the world. India and China are anticipated to witness an exponential growth in population data, reaching 1.45 billion collectively by 2028.  This will further create opportunities for the incubator manufacturers in APAC. The One-Child Policy was incorporated under its Population and Family Planning Law in 1979.  However, the country was affected by the erosion of traditional values, increased crime rates, and mass rural-urban migration.  After almost 3 decades, in 2016, China’s Population and Family Planning Law was amended with a new law, “China’s Two-Child Policy”.  With the implementation of this law, the demands for child-birth related equipment rose, further supporting the growth in regional Incubators market.    

Technical innovations in the healthcare industry are changing the working methods and operations in the healthcare sector. In today’s date, the data generated by the healthcare industry is analyzed by big data, machine learning, and data science communities. Understanding the data generated in the medical field is allowing the healthcare industry to gain insights from the past data so that the implementation and applications in the industry can be optimized. The World Health Organization stated that the lack of clinical data about preterm birth is challenging the physicians and researchers to know exactly how preterm births occur.  Thus, hospitals are teaming up with data analysis companies to study the conditions of premature babies, for this, the incubators used are coming with Pre-installed advanced sensors that read the complete child’s movement and indications. Dr. Carolyn Mc Gregor, the Canada Research Chair (CRC)of the Health Informatics Research department at the University Of Ontario Institute Of Technology, joined forces with IBM and led the big data project termed “The Artemis Project.”  This solution collected the relevant data constantly and tracked variations in vital signs of infants inside the incubator. Mc Gregor said, “If something starts to go wrong with baby, we have the ability to intervene before physical symptoms appear.”  With this project, deadly infections and harmful signs in premature babies can be predicted beforehand. Therefore, advanced incubators equipped with innovative sensors are expected to gain popularity in the healthcare sector, further injecting revenues in the global incubators market.     

Researchers in the healthcare department has taken a huge leap towards the microbiological sciences. Incubators are appropriate equipment for growing and preserving new cells or tissues. Top biologists are considering pigs to grow human organs and cells. Basically, the insides of a pig are biologically similar to human insides, therefore these scientists are using pigs as incubators.  According to these top experts, using pigs as incubators to grow human organs can increase the number of organs more readily available. According to the American Transplant Foundation, 20 people die each day due to the lack of organs, and this is merely an average.  Although there is a dire need for organ donation, the bioethics are creating restrains for the application of biological incubators such as a pig. Rampant innovations and developments in this field are expected to remove the anomalies and controversies involved in this project. Success in this project will certainly depict a new landscape in the global incubators market.  

The companies influencing incubators market are GE Healthcare, Panasonic Healthcare Co., Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific, Phoenix Medical Systems, Atom Medical Corporation, Hettich Lab Technology, VWR Lab Products Pvt. Ltd., Natus Medical Incorporated, Drägerwerk AG and Memmert GmbH + Co.KG.

 a) Infant Incubator Market

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