Seamless Systems

Pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies are increasingly outsourcing to specialised contract research organisations  CROs) in order to remain competitive in an increasingly complex global environment. A recent research study published by Business Insights Ltd entitled ‘The CRO Market Outlook: Emerging Markets, Leading Players and Future Trends’ projects an annual growth rate of 14 to 16 per cent for the CRO market, reaching a value of $24 billion by 2010. CROs have been established as full service providers offering focused and expertise-rich solutions for a range of activities, from research and development (R&D) to clinical trials and manufacturing, through to marketing. This substantial growth is driven by the capability of CROs to achieve optimum cost efficiency, manage peak workload, increase global reach and reduce time-tomarket for pharmaceutical companies seeking to maintain their competitive position. In addition, outsourcing takes the burden of non-core activities and transactional tasks off sponsor companies and allows them to focus on their core competencies. However, despite strong growth, the global CRO market continues to face a number of challenges.

In order to bolster their pipelines, pharmaceutical companies are looking beyond traditional small molecules to biopharmaceuticals, using biomarkers to better characterise the effectiveness of their therapies in the clinic, and personalised medicine. One way that pharmaceutical companies are able to remain agile is through outsourcing to CROs. Outsourcing allows pharmaceutical companies to take advantage of CROs’ specialised expertise while experiencing an improved return-oninvestment, not only in financial terms, but also in time savings.