A brief view of the CRO industry
Wednesday, September 8th, 2010By providing drug development services to the biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical-devices industries, CROs enable their clients to manage product-development processes more efficiently and more cost effectively.
The global CRO market size is estimated at approximately £35 billion and continues to grow. Revenue increases at an annual rate of 14 to 16%.
An investigation carried out by an independent analyst concluded that clinical trials conducted by CROs are competed on average 30 % quicker than those carried out in-house. This means a typical time saving of 4-5 months, equivalent to almost £300 million in increased revenue potential.
The CRO industry is worldwide. Industry leaders recognise the regulations and ethical business practices in place in numerous countries.
Approximately 100 thousand clinical professionals are employed by the clinical pharmacology industry on a global scale. They adhere to the highest ethical standards, complying with the Good Clinical Practices (GCP) and Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) put in place by regulatory authorities. CROs provide clients with an unmatched resource, therapeutic and regulatory proficiency, clinical and non-clinical drug development experience and up-to-the-minute technology.
Taking a flexible approach, CROs offer a variety of services encompassing clinical trial design, regulatory applications, pharmacy, laboratory, protocol writing and CRF design, data management etc. This vast service offering allows for CROs to provide a single service component or a complete bespoke clinical trial solution.
The Drug Development Course
The process of bringing new chemical entities or medical devices into the market can sometimes take up to twenty years to carry out and cost up in excess of two billion pounds. In order to carry out the related research, product development and clinical trials, it requires the input from a number of different participants, including patients/volunteers, physicians and research associates, in addition to the sponsors own staff. It is necessary for information system managers to efficiently maintain the flow of data between the client and the research team, in addition to global regulatory authorities. From the outset, health economist experts will evaluate the market into which the product or medical device is being introduced.
TIP: An indicator of a good CRO is the specialist equipment and facilities like a ecg lab
This process is costly, intricate and longstanding and is broken into numerous stages. Pre-clinical research concerns the testing of new medical devices or drugs on animals and can last between 1 and 3 years. After this testing has proven to be safe and effective, human clinical trials can commence…