New Kids on the Bloc

Since 1990, countries in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) have seen tremendous geopolitical changes. After the breakdown of the Soviet Union and the Soviet bloc, there have been democratic changes in most of the former Communist countries. Many of these countries have walked the long accession to becoming full member states of the European Union (EU). Other CEE countries have made great strides to establish themselves as part of the international democratic community. With the expansion of democracy eastwards, there has been a natural process of extending businesses into these newly emerged territories. This holds true for the pharmaceutical industry in general, and more specifically for biopharmaceutical research.

After the initially hesitant start, with the top pharmaceutical companies venturing out to this unexplored territory, gradually more and more companies have become convinced of the true potential offered by the CEE region. Over the last 10 years, there has been a boom of both pharmaceutical companies and CROs positioning themselves in the growing CEE market.

CHARACTERISTICS OF CEE

The CEE region is comprised of 15 countries with an overall population of more than 300 million people. The healthcare systems in the CEE countries are mostly a centralised ex- Soviet type with large multi-speciality or specialised hospitals treating patients of a certain geographic area or even the whole country. Due to this highly centralised healthcare system, many patients, especially those with chronic diseases, are treated in hospitals rather than by a primary care physician.

As a result, hospitals have registers of patients listed by diseases, which provides investigators with access to pools of patients who can quickly and easily be considered for entry into clinical trials. Therefore, patient recruitment in CEE countries often occurs immediately after study start-up, with patients enrolled in groups allowing recruitment to frequently be completed well ahead of schedule.