Early Phase Clinical Trial Market

Global Early Phase Clinical Trial Market: Overview

A clinical trial is a process carried out to ascertain the effectiveness and safety of a pharmaceutical preparation. It is done in five phases. A preclinical phase precedes all others and is done in laboratory settings. Phase 1 and 2 are carried out on animal subjects and together with the preclinical phase are called early phase trials, as they help scientists establish drug safety and delineate a safe pharmacological dose to give to human subjects in upcoming trials. Phases 3 and 4 are then done on actual human subjects, with Phase 4 actually being a post marketing feedback on efficacy and long term effects of the preparation. 

Early phase trials are often expensive to carry out given the advanced laboratory infrastructure required and keeping healthy animal subjects ready for testing. Outsourcing these trials helps recycle resources among different pharmaceutical manufacturers and keep development costs low. Given the steady growth the pharmaceutical industry is seeing owing to the current COVID-19 pandemic and an increasing base of chronic diseases globally, early phase outsourcing market will continue to grow over the period of 2020 to 2030, states Transparency Market Research. 

Global Early Phase Clinical Trial Market: Competitive Landscape

A number of outsourcing agencies are looking to cash-in on the increased requirements for clinical trials. This makes the market scenario fragmented. Key players in the outsourcing market include:

• PRA Health Sciences
• INC Research
• ICON plc.
• QuintilesIMS
• PAREXEL International Corporation.
• Chiltern International Ltd.
• Sofpromed
• Covance Inc.
• Quanticate

By acquiring smaller laboratories and trial facilities, these players are expected to expand infrastructure required for early phase trials and attract pharmaceutical companies to invest in their operations.

Global Early Phase Clinical Trial Market: Key Trends and Drivers

• The pharmaceutical industry is on the rise. The focus of the industry currently is on developing analogues of existing drugs and testing newer vaccines for prevalent infectious diseases. As infrastructure demand for trials is needed, early phase outsourcing will be seen as a viable option to offload numerous trials. 
• Chronic diseases continue to rise at a steady rate and are expected to affect 57% of the global population by 2050. This can be attributed to improved life span in years with a concomitant sedentary lifestyle being adopted across all economic sections of society. As the search for drugs to treat these diseases is called for, the early phase clinical trial outsourcing market will benefit. 
• The current COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the search for drugs and vaccines alike for this disease, along with a major push to the production of existing drugs. Given the crunch for trial resources in the current pharmaceutical scenario, trial outsourcing is being looked upon as an essential part of drug development. This trend is set to drive market forward.

Global Early Phase Clinical Trial Market: Regional Analysis

North America and Europe are currently global leaders in the early phase clinical trial outsourcing market. An existing pharmaceutical infrastructure coupled with innovations in regional laboratories should is set to bring steady growth in this market. 

The Asia Pacific region (APAC) is expected to register the fastest growth in this market in the future owing to a rising awareness about trial outsourcing among an already robust pharmaceutical industry. South Korea is due to be a leader in this region given the government's favorable laws over clinical trials. China and Australia too are expected to show impressive growth in this market.