A Contract Research Organization is a service organization that provides support to the pharmaceutical/biotech industry. CROs provides clients a wide range of “outsourced” pharmaceutical research services to aid in the drug and medical device research & development process.

Services offered by CROs include: product development, formulation and manufacturing; clinical trial management (preclinical through phase IV); clinical, medical and safety monitoring; preclinical, toxicology, and clinical laboratory services for processing trial samples; data management , biostatistics and medical writing services for preparation of an FDA New Drug Application (NDA).

Major players in this industry include Quintiles (who will be speaking at BioBiz 2010), PPD and many more.

The CRO industry is a rapidly growing one. Industry analysers IMS Health and BCC Research estimate that the global pharmaceutical market will grow at about a 5% rate in 2009 to over $820 billion and be worth over $1 trillion by 2013 . Pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the US spent approximately $59 billion on R&D in 2007, which equates to roughly 18% of their sales and is a 5% increase from the previous year.

A significant portion of R&D budgets are used for the outsourcing services offered by the CRO industry, approximately $15 billion in 2007. This figure is expected to grow at 15% over the next seven years and should increase further with the broadening of the spectrum of services outsourced to cover the entire value chain. As outsourced services in developing countries such as China and India move up the value chain to cover phase 1/2 trials, the total contracts value may go up to $20 billion by 2010.

Are you ready for an exciting career in the CRO industry? Sign up now for BioBiz 2010!

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contract_research_organization