Global E-Clinical Trial Technologies Market to Reach US$1.37 Billion by 2018, According to New Report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc.

Due to narrowing drug pipelines, expiring patents of popular drugs, and a scarcity of prospective drug launches, the pharmaceutical industry is actively seeking tools that can quicken the drug discovery procedure and boost productivity. Though ongoing research is predicted to help detect additional drug candidates, the rise in clinical resources might not be adequate to match the rising number of candidates that are expected to progress from the pre-clinical to the clinical trials phase. This is expected to promote the employment of electronic clinical trial technologies. E-clinical techniques enable real-time data analysis and can be utilized to make ‘Go-No Go’ decisions much quicker, which in turn cuts down cost and optimizes drug development process. In addition, the enhanced ability to validate data in real time assists in reduction of time-consuming checks, which in turn translates to increased revenues due to timely introduction of pharmaceuticals into the market. Many players in the market are therefore adopting technology solutions to enable them reduce project times, control in-house R&D costs, expand capacities, enhance quality of clinical data, as well as deliver differentiated services to clients.

The US and Europe have traditionally been the major markets for conducting clinical trials. However, with strong clinical research capabilities emerging from low-cost regions such as Eastern Europe, Asia (India and China), and Latin America, leading contract research organizations (CROs) are expanding their geographical reach with strategies such as creating captive market, acquiring markets, or outsourcing. Mounting costs of trials, including compensation to volunteers and clinical investigators, is driving the US pharma companies and CROs to look for greener pastures. Similar is the case with Western Europe, which until recently offered immense scope to conduct clinical trials in Germany, Poland, UK, Ireland, Denmark, Belgium, and Austria. However, increasing compensation to patient volunteers and medical staff has offset advantages of clinical data quality. More and more companies are shifting and are expected to shift their clinical research outsourcing activities to the neighboring Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) region, which offer cost advantages combined with world-class quality.

Among e-clinical trial solutions, usage of Electronic Data Capture (EDC) has been rising worldwide over the recent years. However, user satisfaction remains a concern with respect to workload, as many users are of the opinion that EDC adoption enhances workload. Going forwards, satisfaction and usage levels are expected to improve given the wider advantages of implementing EDC such as system response speed, various data entry resources, availability of support and cross-system standardization. Benefits aside, the rising adoption of EDC has also witnessed emergence and growth of certain issues including increasing simultaneous paper case report usage and higher duplication of data entry, in addition to enhanced workload. Vendors of Clinical Trial Management Systems (CTMS), meanwhile, have been successful in developing comprehensive solutions, including those that allow management of several trials simultaneously. Some major vendors even offer integrated solutions that hold potential in converging information from various other solutions such as CDMS (Clinical Data Management Systems) and IVRS (Interactive Voice Response Systems). Leading solutions in the market offer a smooth switch from paper-based methods to all-electronic management of clinical trials.

Increasing adoption of eClinical trial solutions is leading to a new problem – usage of multiple distinct solutions. This makes it necessary for clinical sites, CROs and sponsors to interact with all such divergent applications to obtain harmonized data. Such integrated data in turn is beneficial, as it enhances the efficiency of clinical trials and improves decision making. This is a clear case with the integration of electronic Patient Reported Outcomes (ePRO) and EDC, where discrepancies and conflicts obtained through individual solutions can be eliminated by integrating the solutions, thereby minimizing delays in clinical trials. For sponsors and investigators, the benefits of ePRO and EDC integration are obvious – leading to substantial savings in costs and time. However, the integration also benefits those involved in further analysis of the data. Data mangers, for instance, benefit from real-time transfer of data from ePRO onto the Case Report Forms (CRF) and real-time checking of inconsistencies in the data generated. Statisticians, meanwhile, benefit from generation of statistical reports in a shorter period of time with minimal risk of data errors.

The e-clinical trial domain is witnessing the influx and increasing popularity of open source technologies. Open source technologies are relatively new to the area of clinical trials when compared to other sectors. These technologies for use in clinical trials have several advantages that could potentially expand their adoption in the years ahead. A major advantage is its cost-effectiveness, which is expected to enable even small and medium-size enterprises, who otherwise find proprietary technologies prohibitively expensive creating hurdles to adoption. Despite the availability of open source solutions for several applications, EDC emerged as the most favored through its history. One of the key factors driving more users to embrace open source EDC solutions is the fact that proprietary EDC solutions are significantly expensive. Several major pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies have implemented this solution, and have benefited from the flexibility and low price tag this solution offers.

The US represents the largest regional market worldwide, as stated by the new market research report on E-Clinical Trial Technologies. The number of clinical trials and the count of board-certified Principal Investigators engaged in conducting clinical trials are steadily declining due to the increasing termination of phase III trials, and a growing tendency to outsource clinical trials to low-cost regions, such as Asia-Pacific, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Consequently, the Rest of World market, which includes Asia-Pacific, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, represents the fastest growing regional market for e-clinical trial technologies worldwide, growing at compounded annual rate of around 16.6% during the analysis period.

Major players profiled in the report include BioClinica, Clinipace Worldwide, DATATRAK International, Inc., eResearchTechnology, Inc., Medidata Solutions, Inc., Merge Healthcare, Inc., Oracle Inc., PAREXEL International Corporation, Perceptive Informatics, Inc., SAS Institute Inc., Target Health Inc., among others.

The research report titled “E-Clinical Trial Technologies: A Global Strategic Business Report” announced by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., provides comprehensive market overview, trends & issues, overview of leading technologies, recent product innovations/introductions, recent industry activity and profiles of leading market players. Analysis and overview is provided for the years 2010 through 2018, for major geographic markets, such as the US, Canada, Japan, Europe and Rest of World. Market analytics are provided for E-Clinical Trial Technologies for global and regional markets in terms of US$ Million. The study also provides historic data for an insight into market evolution over the period 2004 through 2009.

For more details about this comprehensive market research report, please visit –
http://www.strategyr.com/E_Clinical_Trial_Technologies_Market_Report.asp

About Global Industry Analysts, Inc.
Global Industry Analysts, Inc., (GIA) is a leading publisher of off-the-shelf market research. Founded in 1987, the company currently employs over 800 people worldwide. Annually, GIA publishes more than 1300 full-scale research reports and analyzes 40,000+ market and technology trends while monitoring more than 126,000 Companies worldwide. Serving over 9500 clients in 27 countries, GIA is recognized today, as one of the world's largest and reputed market research firms.

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