Clinical trial supply and logistics market will grow by 6% in 2013

Tuesday 5 November 2013, Amsterdam

This new report predicts the world market for clinical trial supply and logistics services will expand by 6% in 2013, with revenue growth to 2023. That prediction and others appear in Clinical Trial Supply and Logistics: World Market Outlook 2013-2023, published in October 2013.

This study finds that clinical trial manufacturing services accounted for the largest proportion of service provider revenues in 2012. That market will grow with a CAGR of 6.0% between 2012 and 2023. Demand will be strong for complex manufacturing services in that period, driven by high-potency medicines and biological drug manufacturing. Demand for higher-cost packaging, such as smart packaging, will also expand to 2023. Fastest growth, though, will come in the supply chain management services segment. Patient stratification and greater use of adaptive trial designs will stimulate demand for outsourced trial planning and forecasting, the new study predicts. By 2023, that submarket will account for 5.7% of the worldwide clinical trial supply and logistics market.

Richard Lang, pharmaceutical market analyst, said: “Clinical trial globalisation will increase outsourcing in the supply and logistics sector in this decade. In the past few years many companies in this market invested in expanding to new territories to provide a full logistics network for trial sponsors and drug developers. However, only market-leading distributors, such as World Courier and Marken, can offer truly global access to all major trial destinations, particularly for temperature-controlled storage and distribution.

“Other factors that will stimulate market growth include increased biopharmaceutical drug development. Biologics already account for a third of drug development pipelines and this proportion will grow in the coming decade. Clinical trials for biologics will lead to more demand for cold chain logistics in the future. This, in turn, will drive demand for novel, low-cost temperature monitoring technologies and more-efficient and durable cold chain packaging. Advanced phase change material (PCM) packaging will be in greater demand from 2013 to 2023.”

This new report forecasts the world clinical trial supply and logistics market to 2023, as well as providing forecasts for five leading market sectors:

• Clinical trial manufacturing, including the submarket of clinical trial packaging services.
• Clinical trial logistics and distribution, including the submarket of clinical trial cold chain logistics.
• Clinical trial supply chain management services.

That report also discusses regulatory developments and demand for clinical trial supply and logistics services in leading and emerging national markets. The work analyses the US, Japan, Germany, France, the UK, Italy and Spain, China, India, Brazil and Russia.

Developed national markets account for the greatest demand for clinical trial supply and logistics, with the US and Western Europe accounting for 75.5% of service revenues in 2012. These countries will remain as leading destinations for clinical trials to 2023, the work finds. However, interest in lower-cost trials in new patient populations will stimulate offshoring of clinical trials to emerging markets from 2013. Challenges in trial and import approval delays, as well as those in logistics infrastructure, need to be overcome in developing countries to increase their appeal as medical trial destinations.