Latin America has been considered a dark horse, emerging from a period that saw countries such as India surface as dominant in the CRO sector. However, Latin America's has proved durable as a major player in the industry, with significant advantages as regards to location and resources.
Many of the CROs are headquartered in Mexico and the surrounding regions, which are considered the ideal strategic bridge between North and South America.
The 3 major countries that make up Latin America, total a population of 348 million people: Argentina (35 million), Brazil (213 million), and Mexico (100 million). The region's ethnic make up makes patient enrollment for any clinical study simpler.
Additionally, the main cities of Latin America have National Institutes of Health with adequate facilities, state of art in clinical research and high experience to perform clinical studies of complex methodology in phase II and III, as well as in phase IV.
The agreement represents a working relationship that will involve joint marketing efforts and a mutual contracting of complementary products and services from both companies to biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies.
Among the areas where a partnership would appear to be beneficial to both parties are cases when Averion may wish to conduct multi-national studies including Latin America or when SIPLAS RO may wish to conduct multi-national studies including North America. Financial details of the deal were not disclosed.
"We now have the ability to offer our clients the assurance of a Latin American partner," said Brian Langin, Averion's associate director of Business Development and Strategic Alliances.
"The alliance with Averion brings us a depth of operational experience in clinical research that perfectly integrates with our objective to support global trials that includes sites throughout Latin America," said Juan Gutierrez, president of SIPLAS Research Organisation.