Landscape of the Chinese CRO industry published

A guide to contract research organizations in China is now available to drug and medical device developers. The directory, China CRO 2009, is  being offered by Modular R&D, a consulting firm that assists  pharmaceutical and device companies in developing their products in  China. It can be obtained, free of charge, from: www.modularrandd.com.

"Many companies see the economic drivers and growth potential of  developing their drug or device in China, but when facing the task of  selecting the right CRO, they are out of their comfort zone," says Chloe  Liu, managing partner of Modular R&D. "We have put together a  comprehensive and up-to-date directory of China CROs. This simple list  and basic statistics lay out the landscape of the Chinese CRO industry -  this is what you will be working with," she added.

The directory lists 138 verified CROs based on exhaustive research. The  industry is made up of global firms (7%), domestic (52%) and those with  foreign origin, or based in China but with international reach (41%).  Most of the CROs work in a single service category: 33 offer drug  discovery services, 32 preclinical studies and 91 clinical studies, but  some are active in two or all three of these categories. The companies  differ in size, disease specialty, and geographic focus. They also  differ vastly in quality and fees, says the consultancy.