Asia-Pacific has Record Year for Clinical Trials

Novotech, the biotech CRO, says the region has had a record year by number of studies, experienced world-class sites and investigators, and patient enrollment.

Novotech released its 'Asia-Pacific Industry Highlights 2019-2020' during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco as part of its Biotech Industry Briefing session on the benefits of conducting research in Asia-Pacific.

The Biotech Industry Briefing covered:

• Asia's vast patient pools

• High-quality infrastructure

• Lower trial concentration

• Comparable quality and lower costs

• Key destination for biotech companies for later phase trials

Novotech also spoke about the benefits of running trials with regional CRO partners in the context of multi-region trials.

Novotech CRO's Dr John Moller said, "Asia-Pacific is now recognized by clinical phase biotech companies for accelerated patient enrollment-especially in rare diseases, metabolic conditions, oncology, immuno-oncology and infectious diseases-and lower clinical research costs, with some of the most experienced investigators and research teams.

"Biotech clinical research has been increasing globally by 10% per year, but in the APAC region this increase has been over 25% per year. This follows news from Australia that most clinical phase biotechs would be eligible for a 40%+ cash rebate on clinical research spend, preserved as an incentive for conducting clinical research in Australia.

"We have seen small to mid-size biotechs increasingly looking to partner with CROs of a similar size and mindset. We also found the region focused on more efficient registration and approval processes with significant improvements introduced in China and South Korea in 2019. We are ensuring our clients understand these changes which can save them valuable time and funds.

"Novotech has been expanding to meet growing demand, increasing staff by +20% in 2019, and announcing a strategic partnership with PPC Group. The partnership creates the largest biotech specialist CRO group in the Asia-Pacific, bringing together approximately 1,200 staff with significant scale and synergies across countries, research institutions, trial phases, therapeutic areas and functional specialities."

Novotech clients also have access to more than 350 clinical and operations staff across 28 cities in mainland China.