Cancer diagnostics growth is forcing labs to budget for data, not just instruments

The cancer diagnostics market is on track to add roughly $15 billion in annual spend over the next five years. That growth is going to look, in procurement terms, like a familiar story about instruments and assays. The less comfortable story is about data and labor.

On Aug. 17, 2026, a MarketsandMarkets forecast distributed by PR Newswire projected the global cancer diagnostics market will reach $44.92 billion by 2031, up from $29.86 billion in 2026, a 7.0% CAGR. In the same forecast, MarketsandMarkets characterized IVD testing products as the leading product segment and clinical laboratories as the leading end user, with Asia Pacific expected to post the fastest regional growth (6.5% CAGR) during the period.

Frost & Sullivan, writing about the broader molecular diagnostics space in an August 2026 blog tied to its “Global Molecular Diagnostic Market, Opportunities and Growth Indicators” analysis by industry analyst Jessica Unice Gadde, argued that the pace of adoption will be governed by operational constraints: implementation complexity at scale, shortages of skilled professionals who can integrate genomic and clinical data, and gaps in clinical utility evidence for some emerging tests.

The budget is shifting toward automation, then immediately toward integration

MarketsandMarkets pointed to growing demand for automated cancer diagnostic platforms as a driver for IVD testing instruments, noting adoption of automated molecular systems, PCR platforms, NGS instruments, and digital pathology systems to support early detection, biomarker analysis, companion diagnostics, and monitoring. That’s a clear signal for lab operators: the next refresh cycle will keep rewarding throughput, uptime, and standardized workflows.

Frost & Sullivan’s read adds a second-order implication. As NGS expands multi-gene analysis and labs face more complex genomic datasets, the firm says AI is increasingly used to interpret results and improve workflow efficiency. The money may still book as an instrument purchase, but the operational load shows up in integration work, data management, and governance.

For enterprise procurement teams, this changes what “total cost” needs to include. A sequencing system or digital pathology platform without enough informatics capacity can create a quiet backlog, especially when companion diagnostics links a test to a therapy decision and delays become clinical and financial events.

Consolidation and platform acquisition are operational plays, not just corporate news

Frost & Sullivan described an industry that is consolidating as companies acquire proprietary testing platforms to expand precision oncology and blood-based diagnostics. The blog frames these transactions as a way to bring research, commercial, and financial capacity together so new tests can move into routine care.

Operators should read that as a supply-side change that could simplify some buying decisions while complicating others. Consolidated platform portfolios can reduce the number of distinct workflows in the lab. But they can also tighten coupling between assays, software, and service contracts, which matters when the lab is trying to standardize across sites or renegotiate reagent economics.

MarketsandMarkets’ forecast reinforces why vendors are racing to build suites rather than point solutions: precision medicine and biomarker-driven therapies are expanding the testing menu, and the report lists NGS, PCR-based assays, liquid biopsy, tumor biomarker testing, and digital pathology among the technologies being utilized to improve diagnostic accuracy and clinical decision-making.

Decentralized testing creates a new interface problem for the core lab

Frost & Sullivan highlighted decentralized molecular testing as a competitive axis, driven by demand for faster and more accessible diagnostics. The firm tied this shift to point-of-care testing and distributed testing models, supported by miniaturization, microfluidics, and AI.

This is where cancer diagnostics growth stops being a single-department matter. Distributed collection and near-patient testing can compress time to result, but it also introduces result harmonization, QC oversight, and identity management challenges across sites. If a health system is building oncology pathways that rely on companion diagnostics, the governance model for decentralized testing becomes as important as the analyzers themselves.

MarketsandMarkets expects clinical laboratories to remain the leading end user, citing their role in high-volume, comprehensive testing and noting that advances in NGS, liquid biopsy, digital pathology, and laboratory automation are improving workflow efficiency and turnaround times. That framing implies a hub-and-spoke reality: even when testing pushes outward, the core lab’s informatics and oversight responsibilities tend to concentrate.

Questions to take into the next IVD and oncology diagnostics sourcing cycle

• For any new NGS, PCR, or digital pathology instrument: what is the implementation plan for LIS connectivity, variant interpretation software, and downstream reporting, and which party is contractually responsible for interface build and validation?
• If decentralized or point-of-care molecular testing is in scope: what’s the governance model for QC, operator competency, and cybersecurity across sites, and how will results be normalized for oncology pathways and registries?
• Where companion diagnostics are expected to grow: what evidence package supports clinical utility and reimbursement for the specific testing menu, and what is the lab’s plan to generate local outcomes data if payers require it?
• Given MarketsandMarkets’ forecast growth through 2031: which throughput metric is the binding constraint at this organization, accessioning, run capacity, pathologist review time, or bioinformatics, and which capital request actually addresses that constraint?