Emerging Pharma and Emerging Biotech Value Different Traits in CROs

By Kate Hammeke, Director of Marketing Intelligence, Nice Insight

And on the seller side, it is important to know which sales tactics reach the audience in need of your business’ services. The results of Nice Insight’s annual outsourcing survey show that there are many differences in how emerging companies perceive outsourcing to CROs, depending on whether it is an emerging pharma company or an emerging biotech.

Starting with how these businesses identify potential CRO partners, the methodologies differed. Emerging pharma companies place a significant amount of importance on referrals from colleagues (71 percent), followed by industry research (66 percent), and consultants (56 percent), whereas emerging biotechs showed less reliance on referrals (29 percent, placing third in priority) and more on industry research and consultants (tied for first priority with 52 percent). Emerging biotechs seek out CROs at trade shows and events (38 percent, and second most popular method for identifying a new CRO); however, it seems that their event focus may be more manufacturing centric, with more than half of emerging biotech respondents stating they attend trade shows to identify CMOs (53 percent).