Pharmaceutical Outsourcing in Drug Discovery and Development

Soaring drug discovery development times, prolonged regulation-mandated testing, complex review processes, rapidly escalating R&D expenditures and competition are compelling pharmaceutical companies to outsource various services to inexpensive but highly skilled destinations in Asia. This report, based on a study conducted by ValueNotes and KnowGenix, examines the contract research outsourcing market in India for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology space.

India's total contract research revenues amount to just USD 75 million, but is expected to grow at 23.6% CAGR, hitting USD 175 million by end 2010. India has emerged as an attractive destination for outsourcing research services owing to its low cost manufacturing, lower cost of R&D personnel, lower capital and operational costs for quality infrastructure of international standards. ""The rapidly evolving skill-set of Indian vendors in basic research and development have narrowed the skill-gap required for NCE research. This trend is one of the key attractors for western companies to outsource value added research services from India"", believes Dr Raj Rajagopal, COO KnowGenix.

According to Arun Jethmalani, CEO, ValueNotes, "" Establishing preferred vendor status is one of the critical success factors for Indian firms and would be imperative for long-term repeat business. There is an increasing trend amongst the Indian contract research organizations to move up the value chain by becoming preferred vendors of a few global outsourcers than serving as jack-of-all trades. Preferred vendors often land up with high margin contracts such as researching and/ or developing proprietary technologies for the client"".

Going forward, we expect to see Indian vendors expanding their geographical presence and service-offering portfolio through acquisitions. Partnering strategies like licensing arrangements, collaborative research will be increasingly undertaken. According to Suchita Chaudhari, Senior Analyst at ValueNotes, ""Increased involvement of the outsourcing partner is imperative for success in the drug discovery, development and commercialization. This requires new thinking and new processes with an innovative partner"".

Also, companies are moving up the pharmaceutical value chain and developing capabilities in biologics to complement existing chemistry strengths. ""Biodrugs are safer and more target specific than conventional drugs. Innovator companies suffering from low R&D productivity are increasingly looking at biopharma to generate leads for NCE research. Hence, we believe that Indian vendors with strengths in biopharma will see success"", says Poonam Bhana, Analyst, ValueNotes.

The report provides an overview of the buyer scenario and an in-depth analysis of the Indian vendor space along with profiles of major industry players. The report is designed to help:

• Pharma companies looking to outsource/offshore
• Global pharmaceutical companies to gain understanding of the Indian vendor space
• Outsourcing consultants to evaluate and compare the offerings of vendors
• Potential vendors to assess opportunities
• Contract research vendors to assess their competitive environment
• Venture capital companies looking for investment opportunities
• Researchers looking for detailed information on Contract Research Offshoring

This study is based on secondary data as well as extensive interviews with key people at various contract research organizations (captive as well as third-party) in India.