Drug developers have been aiming to maximize efficiency in notoriously expensive clinical trials, and they have increased investments in clinical trial management system (CTMS) software to streamline clinical operations. Now the market for the software, which has been a hot commodity in recent tech buyouts, is expected to jump from $567.2 million in 2010 to $1.3 billion by 2016, market research firm MarketsandMarkets reports in a new study.
Those numbers are unlikely to shock the top players in the CTMS game, which include Oracle ($ORCL), Parexel International's ($PRXL) Perceptive Informatics unit, Medidata Solutions ($MDSO), eResearch Technology ($ERT) and BioClinica ($BIOC), according to a release on the study. For instance, Oracle boosted its CTMS stake through its buyout of Phase Forward in 2010, and Medidata made a move last year to scoop up Clinical Force to add that group's trials management app to its arsenal of hosted applications.
The new study blueprints where growth is expected in the market for CTMS products, which biopharma groups and CROs use to stay in control of multiple types of data involved in trial operations. With expected annual growth of 14.5% from 2011 to 2016, the market's greatest growth is forecast to come from sales of web-based CTMS products, according to MarketsandMarkets. In general, web-based and cloud-based applications have been attractive to drug developers because of the lower maintenance and IT infrastructure requirements than locally operated software. And the CTMS market appears to be evolving in a similar fashion.
- here's the analyst firm's release