Drug Development Outsourcing Goes Increasingly Global

Driven by mounting market pressures, companies are increasingly outsourcing the drug development process. Not only has the complexity of conducting clinical trials grown over the last 20 years, but the number of drugs in development has increased, government regulations have tightened and patient recruitment has become more difficult in the United States. A new report from Kalorama Information, "Outsourcing in Drug Development: The Contract CRO Market, 3rd Edition," reveals that in 2007 34% of global R&D spending, or $26.4 billion, was committed to outsourcing, up from 22% in 2002, an increasing amount of which is going offshore.

Developing and bringing a drug to market costs over $900 million and takes as long as 15 years, while over 80% of drugs that enter clinical trials fail to get approved by the FDA. Today, in order to decrease R&D expenses and accelerate drug discovery and development, developers are outsourcing more of their R&D functions. But a major obstacle remains -- the patient recruitment and retention process -- particularly as clinical trial protocols become more complex. Delays can result in millions of dollars of lost sales.