CONTRACT RESEARCH

The future of outsourcing

Contract research organizations

Contract research organisations (CROs) are experiencing high growth, now employing more than 100,000 workers and accounting for $14bn in R&D spending by pharma and biotech companies - approximately 20% of the overall pharma and biotech R&D budget. Revenues are forecast to continue increasing at an annual rate of 14 – 16% through 2010 and will amount to $23bn by 2010.

"Outsourcing of R&D presents the opportunity to reduce bottlenecks in the R&D process, cut R&D costs, improve trial design and gain access to new patient groups. In particular, companies are increasingly looking to China and India to outsource their R&D, where outsourcing clinical trials has the advantage of reaching a larger/denser population and 'treatment naive' patients. In India, for example, there are good hospital and clinical facilities, a large population base and the data processing infrastructure for bioformatics. However, the growth of CRO activity is constrained by important regulatory issues both in the developing world and countries from where R&D is outsourced."

See diagram below for details of where our new reports can help your strategic planning

Our new outsourcing portfolio of reports is designed to help decision makers:

• Plan resources and budgets effectively
• Understand the future role of CROs in improving pharma productivity
• Optimizing performance of outsourced companies as part of the R&D process