Economic factors

Abstract

The various applications described in Chapter 8 indicate the potential market for biosensors. The resulting economic factors are important and should be considered. The pH electrode is now commonly used both in the laboratory and on site, and the biosensor appears to be following a similar progression. The glucose electrode had already made a significant impact on the biomedical sector only a short time after it was placed on the market. In three years, 800 Yellow Springs Instrument Company analysers (model 23 A) were sold to different medical analysis laboratories [293]. This success arises from the fact that the price per measurement dropped considerably. Analysers in which the enzyme was used once and then discarded have been replaced by analysers in which a small quantity of enzyme is immobilized on a membrane, but which allow thousands of measurements per membrane. Owens-Illinois (Toledo) transferred the patent rights to the company Technicon, in order to exploit the coupling of immobilized glucos e oxidase with a platinum electrode for the measurement of glucose [294].