Contract Research Organizations (CRO) Market Definition
CRO Production Market
The CRO production market consists of the value of CRO services produced by entities (organizations, sole traders and partnerships) that provide outsourcing of research services such as clinical trial data management, database design and build, data entry and validation, medicine and disease coding, project management, quality and metric reporting, safety and efficacy summaries, and statistical analysis plans and reports, on a contract basis. The production market for a particular geography includes the value of CRO services produced or generated by CRO service providers operating in that geography.
CRO Consumption Market
The contract research organization (CRO) consumption market consists of sales of contract research organizations’ services and related goods by entities (organizations, sole traders and partnerships) that provide outsourcing of research services such as clinical trial data management, database design and build, data entry and validation, medicine and disease coding, project management, quality and metric reporting, safety and efficacy summaries, and statistical analysis plans and reports, on a contract basis. The consumption market for a particular geography includes the revenues generated by CROs (both domestic and foreign based companies) by selling CRO services to end users pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies in that geography irrespective of where the CRO services are produced or generated.
Contract Research Organizations (CRO) Market Size
The market for CRO reached a value of nearly $49.7 billion in 2018, having grown at 10.5% since 2014.
Growth in the historic period resulted from rising costs of drug development, increased patent expirations of drugs, and growth in the biologics market. Factors that negatively affected growth in the historic period were failures in clinic trials and stringent and differing regulations.
Going forward, rapidly growing biologics market, increasing demand for clinical trials of medical devices, growing demand for outsourcing services in emerging countries, expanding scope of CRO solutions through technology, increasing, and favorable regulatory environments in the developed regions, investments in research and development and increasing strategic collaborations among market players will drive growth.
Contract Research Organizations (CRO) Market Drivers
The Key drivers of the CRO market include:
Rapidly Growing Biologics Market – The CRO market is being driven by the biopharmaceutical industry’s improving fundamentals. Most biopharma companies, the CRO industry’s most important customers, are now at the tail end of multi-year patent cliffs and are stepping up investments in their late-stage pipelines. This is expected to drive modest growth in biopharma R&D expenditure in the foreseeable future. The global biologics (biopharmaceutical drugs) market is expected to grow to $428 billion by 2022 at an annual rate of about 13.5%. This rapid growth in the biologics market is expected to accelerate the development of biologics. Biopharmaceutical sponsors are expected to increase their outsourcing activities, supporting the growth of the CRO market.
Contract Research Organizations (CRO) Market Restraints
The key restraints on the CRO market include:
Stringent And Differing Regulations – The stringent and differing pharmaceutical industry regulations across countries restricted the growth of the CRO market. Majority of the clinical trials and other research processes are outsourced to various countries simultaneously. These destination countries have different guidelines and regulatory processes related to drugs, filing and clinical trials, which can cause issues and act as a restraint on the market. Multi-location trials of a single drug in different procedures in different countries pose a challenge to pharmaceutical companies as they have to follow a completely different procedure in each country. This is observed as one of the major challenges for research outsourcing in different countries and so, a company prefers to restrict outsourcing to one destination country. This restricts the research outsourcing market on a global level. For instance, clinical trials, regulatory filings and approval of drugs in India and China have variations. India and China are the major research outsourcing destinations, compelling pharmaceutical companies to choose either of them for outsourcing research.
Contract Research Organizations (CRO) Market Trends
Major trends influencing the CRO market include:
Increasing Focus On Emerging Markets
CROs are focusing on conducting clinical trials in emerging countries such as China, India and Brazil to reduce drug development costs. As the sponsors of the CROs struggle with the rising cost of drug/device development, they are also challenged to improve productivity and efficiency, streamline clinical trials, and meet more rigorous regulatory and quality assurance requirements in order to sustain profitability. The cost of conducting clinical trials in developing countries is around 50% lesser than that in developed countries, with the potential of less costly clinical trial enrollment and more cost-effective trial conduct . Apart from the cost factor, developing countries also prove to be the ideal place for CROs to conduct their clinical trials in order to expand capabilities and have a more diverse pool of patients.
Real World Evidence In Clinical Trials
Contract research Organizations are increasingly incorporating real world evidence in their clinical studies. Real world evidence (RWE) is the data collected from sources outside clinical trials, including the monitoring of social media, mobile and wearable health tracking devices and electronic medical records. These insights from patients can better help CROs tailor clinical protocols to apply to real world circumstances. According to the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, large pharmaceutical, biotechnology and CROs plan to increase staff for collection and analysis of real world data by 25% between 2017 and 2020.
Contract Research Organizations (CRO) Market Segmentation
The CRO market is segmented by type of service, by therapeutic area and by geography.
By Service Type-
The CRO market is segmented by Service type into
- a) Drug Discovery
- b) Preclinical Studies
- c) Phase I
- d) Phase II
- e) Phase III
- f) Phase IV
- g) Other Services
The drug discovery market was the largest segment of the CRO market in 2018 at 32.9%. The Phase I market is expected to be the fastest-growing segment going forward at a CAGR of 15.27%.
By Therapeutic Area -
The CRO market is segmented by therapeutic area into
- a) Oncology
- b) Cardiovascular Disease
- c) CNS disorder
- d) Infectious Disease
- e) Metabolic Disease
- f) Other Therapeutic Area
The oncology was the largest segment of the CRO market in 2018 at 26.0%. The metabolic disease is expected to be the fastest-growing segment going forward at a CAGR of 16.9%.
By Geography- The CRO market is segmented into
- o Western Europe
- UK
- Germany
- France
- Spain
- Italy
- o Asia Pacific
- China
- Japan
- India
- Australia
- South Korea
- o Eastern Europe
- o South America
- o Middle East
- o Africa
The CRO production in North America accounting for 41.2% of the global CRO production market in 2018. It was followed by Asia Pacific, Western Europe and then the other regions. Going forward, the fastest growing regions in the CRO production market will be Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.
The CRO consumption in the North America accounting for 45.6% of the global CRO consumption market in 2018. It was followed by Western Europe, Asia Pacific and then the other regions. Going forward, the fastest growing regions in the CRO consumption market will be Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.
Contract Research Organizations (CRO) Competitive Landscape
Major Competitors are:
- • IQVIA
- • Laboratory Corporation Of America Holdings
- • Syneos Health
- • PRA Health Sciences
- • PPD
Other Competitors Include:
- • ICON
- • PAREXEL
- • Wuxi Pharma
- • Charles River
- • Medpace
- • Covance Inc.
- • Pharmaceutical Product Development
- • Altasciences
- • BioPharma Services
- • Inflamax Research
- • Richmond Pharmacology
- • IXIA CLINICAL
- • Onyx Scientific Limited
- • Pierrel Research International AG
- • ICON Plc
- • Smerud Medical Research and OPIS
- • DreamCIS
- • C&R Research
- • LSK Global Pharma Service
- • ADM Korea
- • Synex Consulting
- • SEOULCRO
- • MediHelpLine
- • A2 Healthcare Corporation
- • Ac Medical Inc.
- • Mediscience Planning
- • GVK Bio
- • Aurigene
- • Syngene
- • Suven Life Sciences
- • WuXi AppTec
- • Shanghai Genomics Inc.
- • Shanghai LeadDiscovery Pharma
- • 2Y-Chem, Ltd.
- • Shanghai Huaxin Biotechnology Co., Ltd.
- • Syneos Health Korea
- • MatrixPharm
- • OCT
- • Cromos Pharma
- • BioEq
- • Eurotrials
- • Intrials
- • Kendle
- • PRA
- • Omnicare
- • Vigiun
- • MENA Research
- • INNOVA CRO
- • ClinServ
- • MCT-CRO
- • Antaea CRO
- • RAY CRO
- • OnQ Research
- • ACRO (African Clinical Research Organization)
- • Vermaak and Partners Pathologists
- • Virtus Clinical Development
- • VX Pharma