The global specialty enzymes market is likely to register a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9.4 per cent during 2015-2020, according to a new report by Allied Market Research.

The report titled "World Specialty Enzymes for Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology R&D and Diagnostics - Market Opportunity and Forecast, 2014-2020,” stated that the pharmaceuticals application segment accounted for about half of the overall market share in 2014. The Asia Pacific market would exhibit the highest CAGR of 11.7 per cent during the forecast period (2015-2020).

Specialty enzymes are proteins that act as biocatalysts to accelerate chemical reaction and produce the desired results. Owing to low consumption and high degree of specificity, specialty enzymes are witnessing spurring demand in medical applications such as pharmaceutical, biotechnology research and diagnostics, the report pointed out.

The growing popularity of specialty enzymes in therapies for chronic diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, pain and inflammatory disorders among others is the vital force fuelling the market growth. In addition, growing awareness about enzyme-based therapeutics in the Asia Pacific and LAMEA region would further boost the market growth. However, safety concerns due to high vulnerability of enzymes towards contamination, would limit the overall market growth, it said.

Pharmaceuticals is one of the major application segments which involves usage of specialty enzymes chiefly in drug formulation and drug delivery. However, the diagnostics segment would see limited growth over the forecast period, due to high cost of diagnostic enzymes (arising due to high purity requirements) and limitation related to accuracy of tests. Acylases enzyme segment dominated the global specialty enzyme market in 2014 and would continue to lead over the forecast period, due to its high utilization in pharmaceutical drug formulations.

Pharmaceutical application segment is projected to register a CAGR of 9.7 per cent, fastest among all application types.Proteases enzyme would emerge as one of the most lucrative segments in the global specialty enzyme market by 2020. Animal derived enzymes is projected to grow at a significant rate in global specialty enzyme source market.

North America and Europe collectively accounted for around 2/3rd of the global pharmaceutical specialty enzymes market in 2014, and are expected to maintain their lead throughout the analysis period

Rise in ageing population in developed economies such as North America and Europe, leads to an increased demand for therapeutic enzymes. Furthermore, adoption of advanced enzymes such as immobilized enzymes is increasing chiefly due to high healthcare expenditure. This had led to the dominance of North America in global specialty enzymes market closely followed by Europe.

However, Asia-Pacific region exhibits the highest growth potential in future, due to the increasing per capita healthcare expenditure, increasing awareness about enzyme therapy and rapidly increasing pharmaceutical manufacturing base, the report added.

Companies are adopting acquisition and product launch as few of their key strategies to increase the manufacturing capacity, expand their market presence and gain additional market share. Key companies profiled in the report are Novozymes, DuPont, Roche Holdings AG, BASF, Life technologies, Advance enzyme Technologies Ltd, Affymetrix Inc, and Codexis Inc.