The fifth edition of the annual BioSpectrum Asia Pacific clinical research organization (CRO) Survey, which is conducted in association with CyberMedia Research (CMR), yet again identifies the latest trends, issues, perspectives and insights regarding the CRO industry in Asia Pacific (APAC).

While the 2013 survey revealed many hindrances facing the industry, including lack of optimum regulatory efficiency, training of personnel, limited development partnerships between CROs and pharma firms; it also reveals many promising findings, including high willingness to participate in clinical trials among countries like China, India, Australia, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia. Furthermore, the CRO sector in APAC is witnessing a major boom leveraging on the growth of logistics and supply chain management in the region.

Concentration of clinical trials by phase
The BioSpectrum Asia -CMR Asia Pacific Annual Survey of the Clinical and Contract Research Organizations 2013 indicates that the concentration of clinical trials is mostly across phase I, II, and phase IV. Around 17 percent of the respondents indicate that the trials that are conducted belong to the pre-clinical phase. The survey findings this year mirror the findings of the previous year's BioSpectrum Asia-CMR Asia Pacific annual survey.

Therapeutic focus areas
The respondents of the survey further reveal that the top therapeutic focus areas in Asia Pacific are oncology (63 percent), cardiovascular diseases (23 percent) and central nervous system (22 percent). The results are in broad agreement with the previous therapeutic focus area trends captured by BioSpectrum Asia-CMR as part of the Annual BioSpectrum Asia -CMR Asia Pacific Annual Survey of the Clinical and Contract Research Organizations.

The latest survey indicates that CROs are focused on a wide-range of therapeutic research areas including metabolic diseases, infectious diseases, diabetes, hematology, anti infectives, endocrinology, and inflammation among others.