The in-vitro diagnostic market, now dominated by the United States, Europe and Japan, will undergo a sea change as emerging countries take market share from the Big Three, according to a Frost & Sullivan report.

The three largest players, which owned 90 percent of the market at the end of 2007, will increasingly lose market share to such nations as India, Brazil and China in the next few years, the consulting company predicted.

The global IVD market will continue to maintain its annual growth rate at a 6.72 percent clip a until 2012, with the largest segment, point-of-care, slated to reach $18 billion. Molecular diagnostics should grow even faster, clocking in at 15.4 percent growth each year.

So-called “lab-on-a-chip,” or DNA chip technology, will help level the playing field, the report predicts. That’s because they’re designed to combine multiple technologies on a single platform, expanding their applicability from the lab to P.O.C. situations.