Outsourcing to Asia is a “strategic imperative”; Quintiles
While acknowledging that the region still faces shortcomings, such as intellectual property protection and regulatory harmonisation, Quintiles believes it is coming of age and this alters the type of work performed.
A Quintiles white paper, titled Realizing the Promise of Asia-Pacific, states that the region is developing to become a “provider of key contributions to drug discovery and research innovation”.
This has the potential to enhance Asia’s reputation as an outsourcing location and perhaps “ultimately change the drug development paradigm in the region and beyond”, according to Quintiles.
Asia-Pacific must continue maturing and developing to achieve this goal. Quintiles notes that the region is yet to develop a completely outsourced drug discovery model, from inception through to therapeutic candidate, but this could be achieved in a few years.
Experience of drug discovery is being developed by a number of sources, added Quintiles. For example, contract research organisations (CRO) and generic manufacturers are enhancing discovery capabilities to provide additional revenue streams.
Quintiles also highlights western private equity funds which are investing in higher end activities performed by Asian biopharmaceutical companies.
These forces are creating a network of capabilities, leading Quintiles to speculate that Asia-Pacific could become a main proving ground for the virtual drug development model.
Harmonisation
Other than China and India the majority of countries in Asia-Pacific lack the market size or human resources to develop fully-fledged pharma companies, according to Quintiles, and this could restrict growth.
However, the white paper states that a more uniform approach to regulation of clinical trials across the region could help create a pan-Asian pharma market with sufficient niches to support a range of companies.
