A recent article published by WBUR, a Boston-area National Public Radio station, pointed out a growing trend in the drug development industry: the move by pharmaceutical companies to seek partnerships as a cost-effective method of bringing new products to market. A shift is currently underway that is seeing the cut-throat competition of years past transition into cooperation between once-bitter rivals eager to take advantage of each other’s respective experience and resources.
Why are pharma organizations turning to partnerships on a more regular basis? The answers are unsurprisingly tied to economics and technology. The cost of traditional drug development has risen to the point where the risk of a product failing during Phase III trials could in some cases seriously impact the bottom line of even the largest pharmaceutical giants. From a technology perspective, however, multinational companies are not only seeking to team up with their equally-large competitors but also tap into the ground swell of expertise and know-how from more agile organizations that have embraced forward-thinking techniques and concepts.
This is particularly evident in the field of adaptive clinical trials, where drug companies have begun to complement their existing – and expensive – traditional randomized clinical trial strategies with faster and more cost-effective adaptive designs. Research and development has been a particular focus for organizations seeking to reduce costs and expand new capabilities and ideas, and adaptive trial design is one of the concepts that has emerged as a clear winner in the bid to squeeze more valuable data out of a trial using fewer, more smartly-managed resources.
With billion dollar mergers and blockbuster drugs largely a thing of the past, the industry’s gaze has turned to innovation – and adaptive clinical trial design – as the new frontier for producing the next-generation of products that will be marketable to a global population.
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Benjamin Hunting
Aptiv Solutions Blogging Team
