Customer Trends In Outsourcing Clinical Research

By Kate Hammeke, director of marketing intelligence, Nice Insight

The practice of using CROs to conduct clinical trials is continuing to grow in popularity, especially as trials become more complex. Analysts estimate clinical research outsourced to CROs will grow from $31.8B in 2009 to a projected $60.8B by 2016. Beyond reducing sponsors’ fixed costs, CROs have proven their ability to add value through expertise — from patient recruitment to navigating an increasingly tricky regulatory environment. And at the same time as drug makers have been focusing efforts on reducing the time and expense associated with bringing a new medicine to market, ironically it seems the FDA has been catching some blame for drug development costs increasing.