Articles
Successful Outsourcing Of Clinical Drug Developments
March 15, 2009
•Article: Successful Outsourcing Of Clinical Drug Developments
By John R. Vogel and Ken A. Getz
Contract research organizations (CROs) are playing an increasingly integral role in today's global drug development process. The volume and scope of clinical research activity cannot be conducted at this time without the capacity contributed by CRO companies. Sponsor spending on full and niche service contract clinical research services has grown 15 percent annually since 2001, outpacing the 11 percent annual growth rate in total global development spending during that same period.
Many factors have contributed to the growth in CRO use: pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies face increasing pressure to contain drug development costs and maintain earnings growth although revenue growth has decelerated. The number of small and midsized companies now engaged in conducting clinical research programs has proliferated. Such organizations typically use higher levels of outsourcing for expertise that falls outside their core capabilities. The number of development programs involving globally dispersed investigative sites has increased significantly. And global headcount growth among major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies has been flat since 2000, whereas headcount growth among CROs has increased by 6 percent annually. At the beginning of 2006, personnel from CRO companies nearly doubled the total number of global professionals involved in managing drug development programs.
Surveys of the pharmaceutical industry have shown that CRO use continues to grow and expand steadily. More studies are being outsourced on a global basis, a larger variety of CRO services are being used, and sponsors appear increasingly receptive to working simultaneously with full and niche service providers.
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