Outsourcing A rising star
While Europe and the US are still popular clinical trial destinations, recent years have seen a move towards more developing countries. From enthusiastic subjects to lower costs, it’s not hard to understand, with Asia-Pacific an up-and-coming location in the trial space. But what makes countries in this region a prime choice for conducting a drug trial – and can conveners overcome the political and cultural barriers they sometimes face? Andrea Valentino speaks to Sheraz Ali at the University of Tasmania, and Professor Victoria Elegant at Amgen Asia Pacific, to learn more.
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n 1061, China played host to a landmark of medical science. That year, the Song Dynasty ordered officials across the empire to gather information they believed held medicinal properties. Ultimately compiled across 21 volumes, the Ben Cao Tu Jing (Atlas of Materia Medica) offered fascinating insights on everything from herb cultivation to pharmacology. Even more strikingly, the treatise offers one of the first ever examples of a modern clinical trial. After feeding one subject ginseng, investigators had them race against an opponent given nothing. As the tract reports, while the ginseng-free individual huffed and puffed, their rival “breathed evenly and smoothly”.
Of course, more recent centuries have seen the medical centre of gravity move away from the Middle Kingdom. Between the Scientific Revolution and the rise of global conglomerates, Western nations now dominate clinical trials, with the United States alone now gobbling up some 30% of the total. And beyond the experience and funds available to the Global North – Pfizer spent a colossal $13.8bn on R&D last year – that dominance isn’t hard to understand. With a few important exceptions, notably in places like Japan and South Korea, most Asian nations have traditionally struggled to host the most robust clinical trials. A lack of decent facilities is one problem, a challenge compounded by a worrying tendency to forge results.
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