Latin America, which contributes roughly 30 per cent of global drug sales each year, has become an increasingly attractive location for pharmaceutical trials among sponsors seeking to control R&D costs and access growing markets.
A study, released last month by market analysis group Business Insights, confirmed this growing trend and reiterated the region’s potential as a low cost clinical development hub.
The report, “Emerging Clinical Trial Locations: Market dynamics and the changing healthcare and regulatory environment,” revealed that the pharma industry has started to recognize the advantages of conducting clinical trials in emerging markets.
The authors suggest that trials carried out in Latin America can cut pharmaceutical sponsors costs by as much as 50 per cent per patient when compared with those carried out in the US.
They also cite the rapid growth of the number of trials conducted in Mexico, up from 63 to 2014 over the last eight years, as a further example of the region’s benefits adding that similar growth was seen in Brazil and Argentina over the same period.
Exciting Latin American market
This market expansion is at the heart of the new goBalto deal explained company CEO Jae, adding that the deal will help users “to more quickly and easily evaluate the leading investigator sites,” which he described as an “exciting, high growth” region.
The deal with CTS adds 950 additional sites, including regional hospitals and purpose-built study facilities, to goBalto's existing 9,000 strong database of global clinical research units.
The San Francisco firm stressed that only trial sites meeting strict quality standards were featured on the list, explaining that inclusion was determined by factors such as technical capability, capacity and regulatory compliance record.
CTS’ CEO Carlos Caceres said that inclusion on the goBalto site is important because it expands the number of contract research organisations (CROs) and laboratories able to access the information.
Caceres added that: “Research in our country is growing, the sites and investigators are highly qualified and though we are a little country, the sites usually reach their patient targets.”
goBalto’s website can be accessed here.