We may wonder what will happen to the clinical research organisation (CRO) industry whilst the nation gradually recovers from the recent recession, but according to a recent reportcarried out by Frost & Sullivan, the CRO industry will keep on groing. During this current climate, biotech and pharma organisations are less probable to rely on or spend on internal methods to carry out their drug trials. However, someone has to do them…
The report has also warned that the “US CRO Markets-Key Therapeutic Areas” anticipate that struggling pharma and biotech companies will fail to meet the costs for trials currently underway. But this is not likely to be a lasting occurrence, suggests the report.
Barath Shankar Subramanian, senior industry analyst for Frost and Sullivan, pointed out that the CRO annual revenue growth is down from the fourteen to fifteen percent region last year to ten percent this year.
Growth Prospects – for pharmacology companies or CRO’s
Although, this is not all bad news – Subramanian claims that the industry’s annual revenues will double from now until the year 2015, growing from a current 12.91 billion to $22.87 billion in the years to come. This, he says, will be due to sponser firms increasingly adopting tactical partnerships with smaller services firms or CROs. “After 10 years of talking about such relationships, CROs and pharma companies are beginning to forge them,” he says.
Subramanian uses the immense Eli Lilly/Covance partnership as an example, which came in to effect in August last year, where Covance has outsourced $1.6 billion worth of drug development business to Lilly over the next 10 years.
Subramanian says: “That’s the flavor of the season, we’re seeing some new models being explored when previously it was purely transactional, with CROs taking a wait and watch attitude toward strategic partnerships.”
In addition, partnerships with CROs or clinical pharmacology organisations enable small sponsors more time within the research cycle to investigate promising molecules. Beginner biotech and pharma firms used to out-licence their Phase I or Phase II; which resulted in a large amount of ambiguity for the future of the research study. In this day and age, conversely, more and more start-up firms are able to keep products in the pipeline for a longer period of time which in turn brings them closer to the market and this is due to the cost-effectiveness made possible by CROs. This is an optimistic outcome for the sponsor and the CRO.
Author Tip: clinical studies conducted in the UK by professional CRO’s are the best choice for aquiring the most accurate data.
* Make sure that you consult your doctor before taking any medical advice of any kind.