The rise and spread of CROs – interactive feature
The proportion of trials outsourced has risen over the past 20 years and this has been mirrored by an increasing number of CRO’s investigators being registered by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as depicted below.
In addition the companies have set up offices all over the globe and this is shown in the treemap below, which shows the geographic footprint of some of the major companies in the CRO sector.
The chart is broken down into companies, with each section being distinguished by colour and having the CROs name at the top.
Each company’s size on the treemap is determined by the number of offices they have, so, for instance, Quintiles is a larger proportion of the chart than Encorium.
A company can be focused on by right clicking on its section and selecting, for example, “View: Covance”. This shows that each company is broken down into the regions and countries its offices are in, with a sections area again equating to the number of offices.
Further focusing is possible by right clicking on a region within the treemap and selecting for example, “View: Asia”, giving a better view of where the companies offices are in the region.
In addition the tabs in the top left, entitled “Company”, “Continent” and “Country” can be rearranged to alter the treemap. For example, moving “Continent” ahead of “Company” divides the map up to show what region has the most offices, as opposed to what CRO.
