Pharma in Focus - Aust's strength is in early phast CT_8July2015
1. 6 - 12 Jul 2015
News
Aust's strength is in early phase CT
Posted 8 July 2015
Australia needs to play to its strengths in attracting clinical trials, particularly in the pre-clinical and early phase, as
competition from the Asia Pacific region gets more aggressive.
"The country has the potential to become a hot destination for early phase clinical trials due to factors such as world class
infrastructure, large number of clinical researchers with experience as well as expertise, and strong intellectual property laws coupled
with good regulatory framework and fast approval timelines," said Sanjeev Kuma, consultant, growth partnership services, healthcare
Asia Pacific with Frost & Sullivan and Rhenu Bhuller, partner and senior vice president, health with Frost & Sullivan in AusBiotech's
Australian Biotechnology journal's special feature on clinical trials.
"To continue to grow, Australia needs to play to its strengths in the area of pre-clinical trials and early phase clinical trials, where
strong R&D capabilities are required and it is less dependent on patient numbers," they said. "It is a segment where Australia has an
edge as its success mostly depends on the experience and accomplishments of individual researchers."
Though currently phase III trials hold the largest market share, they noted that it is an area where there is high competition from other
countries in APAC and Latin America. And those were countries that were also doing it cheaper and faster than Australia.
So, at the moment, Mr Kumar and Ms Bhuller said, Australia's share of clinical trials has been declining. Further, attempts to improve
the environment via recommendations of the Clinical Trials Action Group have been too slow: "The speed of implementation of their
recommendations has seen a decline in the number of clinical trials and also resulted in reduced business growth for CRO companies."
On the other hand, they pointed out that early stage (phase I) trials increased over 40 per cent.
The article stated that the APAC region held 12.1 per cent of the total global market in clinical trials in 2014 which was worth US$3.4 billion. Australia's CRO market, a "relatively mature"
market, held a 10.1 per cent share of the APAC CRO market in 2014 and was worth US$349 million.
Australia has more than 30 CRO providers and pharma continues to outsource for faster drug development. Mr Kumar and Ms Bhuller added that the "thriving" biotech industry was helping
mid to small size CROs survive even as larger multinationals shift focus to China and India.
Nevertheless, the market is expected to reach $615 million in 2019 growing at a CAGR of 12 per cent.
A snapshot of the CRO market in 2014 showed oncology made up the largest number of clinical trials in Australia (37 per cent), followed by cardiovascular (16 per cent) and respiratory and
allergy disorders (12 per cent).
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