Growing Demand For Outsourcing Services In Emerging Countries Will Drive The Global Contract Research Organizations Market

Contract Research Organizations (CROs) offer end-to-end solutions in conducting clinical trials for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies, collectively referred to as sponsors. The core services offered by CROs to biopharmaceutical companies include initial drug discovery solutions, toxicology studies, bio-analytical services, central laboratory, site monitoring, data management services, vigilance, bio-statistics, study and development program design and consulting, regulatory affairs and a variety of post-marketing surveillance services. Globally, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the United States and Europe are increasingly outsourcing their core research activities to the CROs in developing countries, owing to the cost containment pressures and demand for high quality services. Because of this, most of the multi-national CROs are now expanding their operations to developing countries in Latin America, Asia Pacific and Eastern Europe, where there are lower costs associated with conducting clinical trials, favorable government regulations, strict intellectual property rights and low labor and other overhead costs, when compared to the US and European countries. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies in developed countries belligerently seek to reduce costs, limit future investments and realign operating models to increase revenue levels.

These economic conditions in developed countries are expected to drive the demand for outsourcing services. The global CRO market will grow from around $56 billion in 2019 to $70 billion in 2021 at an annual growth rate of slightly more than 12%.

CROs are trying to expand their scope of services by providing solutions across all research and development phases through new technologies. Technological developments such as wearable health monitors help in identifying potential patients and allow to gather huge volumes of data, without causing discomfort to the patient. The sensor technology in wearables allows for continuous and real-time reporting of data. ICON plc is piloting collaborations to use wearable technologies to collect health and wellness data for clinical trials.

Greater investments in cloud technology and big data will also continue to play an important role as the industry evolves and CROs strive to become more efficient and maintain a competitive edge. Big data is large amounts of data that can be analyzed to obtain insights and drive decision making. Incorporating these technologies into the drug development process dramatically enhances overall efficiency through lower associated costs, reduced cycle times, improved quality of results and optimized commercialization strategies. Quintiles has an Infosario Analytics platform that provides trial monitoring and analytics and integrates data across multiple systems. ICON plc has the ICONIK, Firecrest and ADDPLAN data management and analytics platforms.

These capabilities will help to expand the market audience for CROs, particularly in commercialization, where penetration is relatively low, enhancing their value proposition for biopharmaceutical companies and medical device companies.