Pharma IQ showcases the top 10 Contract Research Organizations across the Pharma IQ network.
Much of the world’s population is in desperate need of better medical care. This need is a large driving force behind drug discovery’s mission to uncover new medicines.
The drug discovery process is complex and stubborn. The clinical stage, in particular, is resource intensive, demanding and high risk. A fine balance is required to execute this stage correctly.
Clinical Research Organisations (CROs) supporting drug manufacturers on their road to discover and approve drugs of the future by absorbing some of the clinical stage’s the burdens.
Some of the activities covered are:
- Data research
- Project management
- Tests
- Trials that are run post approval
- Pre-clinical
- Clinical
This relationship, which is built on trust and skill, can award manufacturers with heightened expertise as well as cost and time efficiencies. These benefits come at the cost of duties such as intensive communication management, confidentiality concerns and regulatory considerations.
The trend towards outsourcing to CROs isn’t expected to fizzle out anytime soon, especially as the spread of clinical trials across the world is growing. The global market is forecasted for strong growth, after reaching US$36.2bn in 2017 it is projected to climb by another US$20bn over the next five years.
Read more: How to improve the success rates of clinical trials
What to look for in a CRO?
Pharmaceutical and biologic firms need to select reliable partners who will add value to their medical research. This is a complex decision process involving the evaluation of many variables.
We invited the Pharma IQ community to vote for the leading CROs in the pharmaceutical and the biologic industry according to their own experiences.
Our research base is made up of participants from mainly big pharma or biotech, SME pharma and consultants. Other entities included in this research include government bodies, medical device manufacturers and public hospitals.
What criteria makes an excellent CRO?
The rising public pressure on medicine prices and spend by pharmaceutical firms, drives the appeal of outsourcing as a way to cool costs.
However, as pharma continues to wrestle with stagnant innovation levels, despite the funding boost to R&D pipelines, cheaper running costs are no longer the primary motive for outsourcing. In fact, this was considered as the last priority for our response base.
Read more: How to automate the data lifecycle to accelerate drug discovery
(Respondent’s could vote for more than one answer)
One respondent noted that on top of having a combination of all the listed attributes, they desired the ‘right’ culture and expertise within the actual group of people proposed for the study.
Availability in certain regions, emerging markets, for example, and being update to date with recent regulatory changes were highlighted as key factors by some participants.
Just over 55% of our base agreed that quality is the most important differentiator when selecting a CRO.
Regarding the importance of quality, in association with the Trial Master File (TMF) and Inspection Readiness event, Ivan Walrath, Head of Audit and Inspection Quality at Pfizer noted how important it is CROs recognized the significance of this file. The TMF is what regulators will consult to evaluate the quality of the science behind the product at hand.
He added: “What I’ve seen when these partnerships have worked well is a good level of communication and integration between the people from the CRO and the sponsor working together to execute a trial.
“When you have a well-functioning team, even across those organizational boundaries, everybody gets behind what needs to happen from a quality standpoint, from a compliance standpoint and other important aspects like hitting timelines.”
Our 2018 study found that Clinical trial supply has seen a reduction in wastage rates thanks to smarter integration and alignment with enrollment rates.
This improvement was achieved through Interactive Voice Response Systems (IVRS) and Interactive Response Technology (IRT), these tools were one of the top spend priorities.
Read more: Top five countries running the most clinical trials
Reviews
The majority of the base noted that contract reviews would happen only when an issue came up or on an annual basis.
A few participants clarified that reviews are ongoing as part of their oversight to ensure compliance with contract services, but “not for the purpose of switching CROs, that would only be done in extreme circumstances of failure to perform.”
Ending a partnership with a CRO
Similar to 2017’s results, lack of quality was the aspect voted most likely to end a partnership with a CRO, attracting 65% of the votes. A high level of mistakes was the next option with 12% of the vote. One participant proceeded to clarify a legitimate reason being:
“Significant failure to meet obligations of contract, missing multiple milestones, without reasonable cause or appropriate risk mitigation.”
Pharma IQ top 10 CROs
1. IQVIA
2. Parexel
3. Syneos Health
4. Covance
5. Icon
6. PRA Health Sciences
7. PPD
8. Chiltern
9. Fisher Clinical Services
10. Medpace
Read our updated guide to the 10 biggest CROs in the pharma sector for 2022
Firms that attracted recognition from the network as rising stars include:
· Charles river laboratories
· Pivotal
· PSI
· PharmOlam
Further comments included: “After 25 years in the business, always with small Biotechs, I have learned that niche CROs provide the best service for our needs (Argint and CONET). I tend to avoid large CROs when at all possible.”
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