The number of publications that describe studies involving new biomarkers increased significantly during 2014, with 37% more such studies in 2014 than 2013.

This figure shows the total number of publications each year that include the words "novel biomarker" or "new biomarker" in the title or abstract.
This figure shows the total number of publications each year that include the words “novel biomarker” or “new biomarker” in the title or abstract.

While this growth rate is exciting, we still are not seeing the same rate of growth in biomarkers that have been validated for clinical use – the “chasm of death” between discovery and clinical use is still very wide. In prior studies we have reported that an average of only three novel targets per year made their way into FDA-approved tests over the decade from 2003-2012, and it will be interesting to see if that trend has changed over the last two years.