5. Some economic data

The biosensor industry is booming. The market is divided into four segments: medical, environmental, agri-food and military, with medical applications accounting for the vast majority (90% of sales are of glucose-detecting biosensors).

In the food industry, pathogen detection is the biggest market. In the USA, a recent study [51] indicates that the US food industry carries out over 144 million microbiological tests every year (of which 16.3% are for pathogens, 15.7% for fungi and yeasts, and 30.8% for coliforms and E. coli). In 2000, 27.5 million pathogen detection tests were carried out, and this figure exceeded 34 million in 2005, representing a market worth $192 million. In terms of pathogens, detection of the bacteria themselves represents 82% of the market, with quantification of the toxins...