 announced  publication of its Q2, 2011 marketing intelligence report for the pharmaceutical and biotech CRO/CMO industry. The release of this second quarterly report enables companies buying the research to see developing trends from the Q1 report, as well as the overall key survey research that provides benchmark metrics for customer perception and customer awareness in the industry.
 
Highlights from the Q2 CRO/CMO report include a shift in survey respondents reflecting a slight decline in Big Pharma representatives and more from emerging, niche or start-up companies. 32% of respondents still came from Big Pharma, which remained the biggest segment, while 24% were from biotechnology, 18% from specialty pharmaceuticals, 20% from emerging or niche pharma, and 5% from emerging biotech. 
 
Data from the Q2 Brand Index report showed that 60% of companies scored less than 40% in overall customer awareness. This was an improvement of 25 points over Q1 figures, which may indicate that emerging pharma respondents have a broader awareness of CMOs and CROs.
 
Survey respondents had worked with 65% of the 408 companies covered in the study, which is virtually double the number from Q1 and may again reflect differences with more input from emerging and niche pharma. Every company in the Q2 survey registered some awareness among respondents, which was another positive trend over Q1 data.
 
Victor Coker, Director of Business Intelligence and a former Marketing Director at a prominent CMO, said, “Our Q2 data indicates that CMOs and CROs are better known among the smaller pharma companies. Trends like this give these companies key metrics that should influence their strategic positioning and marketing. The value in Nice Insight is in providing this broad spectrum of information, and also in helping customers to identify the right outsourcing partners more effectively.”
 
Companies with budgets under $10M remained consistent at 42% of projected 2011 outsourcers, and categories of $10-50M and over $50M still split the remaining 55% almost evenly. There was a reduction in the average number of projects likely to be outsourced in the sub-$10M category, declining from 4.68 to 3.45 projects or services. The $10-50M and Over $50M categories remained consistent at 4.93 and 5.52 projects respectively.
 
Quality and reliability remained the highest priorities according to Q2 data, but pricing jumped up above regulatory track record and productivity to third in order of importance to respondents. 
 
New data mined in the Q2 survey included the methods used to identify and select an outsourcing partner. On average, companies select partners using a combination of 2-3 channels, with consultants used by 66% and referrals by 45%, followed by industry events and trade shows being used by 35%.  Periodicals or publications and web searches were used by 24% and 23% respectively.
 
In May, Life Science marketing agency, That’s Nice LLC –parent company of Nice Insight–announced new pricing for access to this valuable market research. Customers can purchase individual a-la-carte reports on companies that interest them in any specific quarter, offering greater flexibility.
 
Nice Insight marketing intelligence products will be demonstrated by That’s Nice staff at the DIA 47th Annual Meeting (booth #462) in Chicago from June 19-23 and at BIO International (booth #2063) in Washington DC from June 27-30. 
