Potential of clinical trials in CEE region

Global clinical trial market is constantly growing and it is estimated to be worth 50-80 billion $USD. A recent general trend on pharmaceutical field is the globalization of clinical trials that are more and more often performed on emerging markets. As specialists emphasize, global trials are strongly needed in order to find patients suffering from rare diseases as well as to properly respond to the spread of such diseases as heart disorders or cancer, which are typical for “Western world”.

One of the regions that draws much attention of pharmaceutical companies and other investors in terms of clinical trial market potential is Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) with almost 2000 registered clinical trials per year. There are several reasons making CEE one of the most promising places for clinical trials performance.

One of the major advantages is a huge population of patients concentrated around easily accessible centralized healthcare facilities. Moreover, patients from CEE have usually limited access to the newest therapies, therefore, they are more willing to participate in some even experimental researches. As it can be seen, the whole recruitment process can be easier and shorter comparing to Western Europe or the USA.

The other factors that make CEE a promising clinical trial market are motivation and experience of investigators. Cooperation with the biggest pharmaceutical enterprises  and involvement in the development of novel therapeutic approaches as well as financial benefits all together can be extremely appealing for the investigators. Moreover, apart from the commitment of investigators, they already possess a significant experience in clinical research. For instance, Polish market began its “adventure” with clinical trials in early 90s. Since this time, investigators together with ethics committees have gained much experience in proper contact with patients and overall good clinical practice.

Cost-effectiveness and very good efficiency and quality of clinical trials are additional advantageous features of CEE market. It has been estimated that the costs associated with clinical trials, such as site payments, investigators’ salaries or monitoring of trials are approximately 25-30% lower than  in the USA of Western Europe. Importantly, the quality of clinical trials in CEE has been defined to be at the very high level comparable with the most developed markets.

The most popular countries in CEE attracting pharmaceutical companies are Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. Additionally, Russian market is also a promising place for clinical trial performance, although it possesses some regulatory challenges.

The globalization of clinical trials with all its benefits is not free from challenging issues. It has to be remembered that each market should be considered separately due to the diverse regulatory systems and clinical requirements. When all these aspects are thoroughly investigated, such regions as CEE are truly promising for clinical trial research.

Sources:

http://clinmark.pl/cee-clincal-trail-market-advantages/

http://www.pharmoutsourcing.com/Featured-Articles/150621-Key-Strategies-for-Effective-Globalization-of-Clinical-Trials/

http://www.oct-clinicaltrials.com/about/

Maciej Smolarz