The key factors propelling the whole slide imaging market are increasing usage in drug discovery processes, technological advancements in whole slide imaging, and rising popularity of virtual slides, as compared to physical slides. Also, the increasing incidence of cancer is expected to drive the growth of the overall market.

With increasing research, there are many pharmaceutical and biotech companies that have made significant investments in drug discovery. As a consequence, imaging is now performed in all drug discovery processes. Therefore, imaging and image-based technologies are now commonplace across the drug discovery workflow and hold great promise for R&D, allowing researchers to understand and work with model organisms. Thus, it is expected to improve standardization, quality, and manageability of research, and help reduce costs. Also, as research in drug discovery increases, it is expected to directly impact the growth of the whole slide imaging market.

Digital pathology (DP) is also a rapidly growing field that has generated a lot of interest among hospitals, laboratories, surgeons, research institutes, and healthcare companies, among others. The digital pathology process is expected to significantly increase, and thereby, increase productivity and efficiency, by allowing pathologists to stay in their offices rather than travel to numerous locations.

With the advancement of digital pathology and computer-assisted artificial intelligence technology, it is inevitable that digital health will come to play an important role in the strategic planning of cancer research and precision medicine delivery.

Thus, whole slide imaging devices are increasingly being used for cancer research and precision medicine, as many diseases can be defined by being examined under the microscope. Pathologists' involvement in precision medicine and digital technology is likely to be a key driver for improving patient care. As a result, this is a great opportunity for the growth of the market.