Sep 2010: In an effort to assess the trends in Contract and Clinical Research Organizations (CROs) in the Asia Pacific region, after the global slowdown, BioSpectrum Asia conducted a survey of the CRO industry. BioSpectrum sent questionnaires in June 2010 to 250 CROs from all across Asia Pacific region. The scope of the survey included the multinational, regional and local clinical research organizations and CROs with revenues upto $1 billion. In all, 39 CROs from India, China, Malaysia, Singapore, Australia, Taiwan, Thailand, South Korea and Hong Kong participated in the survey.
The results of this survey, when further corroborated with the market experts and analysts, BioSpectrum team found it to be a representative of the industry on ground situation. We discovered that 41 percent of the CROs who responded positively, they projected a growth of over 26 percent in 2010 while 49 percent observed that they are looking forward to a growth in the range of 10-25 percent in 2010. Industry reports say that the CRO mark et is expected to grow at a CAGR of 20%. In the following pages, we provide the findings of the second BioSpectrum Asia Pacific CROs Survey 2010.
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The CROs in Asia Pacific region have increased the number of clients by 171% in 2009 over the previous year. The Indian CROs have increased the number of customers by over 337%; followed by Singapore with 282 % and Australia by 211%.
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There is a slight increase in the total number of staff in 2009 over 2008, in sales and marketing, administration and management divisions except research division.
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Of the total employees working in CROs in Asia Pacific region 3% of them are controlling the CROs business in the region. While a big chunk, 71% of the staff, who can be called the backbone of these organizations, are doing the behind-the-screen job - Research and Development work.
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67% of the respondents to the survey pointed that Asia Pacific is the base for doing phase III and IV studies, due to the large patient population in the region, cheap labor, sponsors’ eagerness to launch the products in this growing market.
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Oncology, cardiovascular, central nervous system, diabetes and metabolic disease are the top five focus areas of contract and clinical research activities for the companies in Asia Pacific region. 53% of the respondents are focusing on oncology, which leads the table of focus therapeutic areas of CROs in the region.
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85% of the CROs are working on expanding the geographical reach so to establish their direct presence in other countries and in the region. 67% of the respondents have plans in place for client expansion followed by product development (51%) and revenue growth (41%).
23% are in clinical & contract research
Of the 39 respondents of the BioSpectrum Asia Pacific Contract and Clinical Research Organizations (CRO) Survey 2010, 84.62 percent are focusing on clinical research while 33.33 percent on contract research. The figures add up to 117.95 percent, as 23.08 percent of the respondents are into both clinical and contract research activities.
Service offerings
The respondents of the BioSpectrum Asia Pacific Contract and Clinical Research Organizations (CRO) Survey 2010 noted that as CROs, they are offering end-to-end preclinical to early clinical development platform for pharmaceutical product development. Some of the services offered by the CROs include integrated target to candidate ready solutions across target platforms of kinases, ion channels, proteases; molecular modeling services, medicinal chemistry and scale-up services, gene to structure services, informatics services, genomics and pharmacogenomics/pharmacogenetics services, personal/whole genome sequencing services. The service also include process chemistry, drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics and safety assessment, bio informatics services.
While CROs have been offering full range of early- to late-stage clinical development services like taking a molecule from ‘concept to clinic’. Some of the CROs are offering auxiliary services to support clinical trials through strategic partnerships with best-of-the-breed service providers. Depending on the expertise, availability of the resources in different countries and needs of the customers, the CROs have developed specialized skill sets to offer the best of services to the sponsors.
Some of the services include Bio-Analytical Services, Pre-Clinical Services, Phase I-IV operational services, Central Lab Services, Clinical Trial Management, Clinical Data Management, Bio-Statistics, Medical Writing and Medical Translation, Regulatory Consulting, Pharmacovigilance, CRA In-Sourcing, Corporate Training, Feasibility Studies, Protocol and Study Document Development, Project Management; Quality Assurance Services, Study Monitoring, Study Closeout; Medical Monitoring; Statistical Analysis, Clinical Trial Supplies Management and Vendor Management, Safety Monitoring, Patient Recruitment, Insourcing/Resourcing, Clinical Consulting, Bio Availability/Bio Equivalence (BA/BE) studies, Contract Management, Biometrics, Strategic Study Design, Protocol Development, Site Selection and Start up, Targeted Monitoring, Investigator relationship management technologies, CRA/CRC/Study Nurse Staffing, Site Management Services.
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