Pharma Business Report Series -BRIC Clinical Trial Report Part 9

This is the final part of Pharma IQ’s report based on the survey of hundreds of pharma business owners and professionals who are involved in clinical trials as part of their day to day work. The rest of the report can be found in our pharma business resource centre.

So how do you choose a partner? The participants were asked how they select the right outsourcing partner to reach their clinical research objectives. Unsurprisingly 29.8% used consultants, 27.3% referrals and 18.4% selected their clinical outsourcing partner at industry events and trade shows. Very few respondents relied upon independent research on online business directories.

Creating strategic partnerships

Selecting the right CRO for your company and product is of paramount importance. The time taken in technology transfer means that you could wipe up to 5 years of your pipeline development if you get it wrong. As a result, we are starting to see a greater shift towards collaboration and shared risk in clinical development. The relationship between CRO and sponsor has become much more strategic to increase clinical efficiency and help foster innovation.

Pharma asked the survey participants specifically about their selection criteria for choosing a CRO to work with in Brazil, Russia, India or China. Local expertise proved to be most important at 33%, closely followed by global reputation 25.7% and specialisation in a particular therapeutic area 23.7%. For 15.8% an existing relationship with a CRO was of the upmost importance. The actual size of the CRO did not appear to be an important factor for most participants with just 1.8%.

Unlocking potential
To ensure the greatest ROI and an effective CRO-sponsor partnership, pharmaceutical companies must also improve their own processes.

“Every sponsor company has got to work on their processes their personnel, their training their team work and once again their trust building in order to leverage the countries we are all going to now and then they can really focus on making the BRIC countries a wonderful resource for continued research and development,” said Jacobs.

If a pharma business can embrace both the challenges and opportunities of working with BRIC countries and are prepared for some internal change they will be able to unlock their true potential.

For earlier parts of the report, please visit our pharma business resource centre.