The investment of the pharmaceutical industry in R&D grows in 2020 despite the pandemic

Via: www.consalud.es

The pharmaceutical industry investment in R&D has increased during 2020 despite the coronavirus pandemic, but the productivity of clinical trials remains below average.

This is reflected in a new report carried out by the analysis firm CRO IQVIA collected by FierceBiotech, which shows that, in general, the activity of clinical trials recovered from mid-2020 to levels higher than 2019, even without taking into account COVID-19 trials, which clearly did not exist the year before.

Specifically, the total number of trials reached 4,686, 8% more than in 2019, with 985 in phase 3, 1,880 in the intermediate phase and 1,821 in phase 1.

The data reveals that there was an increase in the productivity rate of the clinical trials that was mainly due to an improvement in the phase 3 trials
Similarly, the data reveal that there was an increase in the productivity rate of clinical trials that was mainly due to an improvement in phase 3 trials, widening the gap with phase 1 trials, “which score significantly lower with this index ”.

However, in general, productivity “remains below historical levels.” This is because the complexity of trials is generally increasing, as is the duration of studies in many diseases.

Regarding the pharmaceuticals portfolio, IQVIA saw end-stage portfolio growth continue into 2020, bringing the total expansion to 43% since 2015 as cancer drugs hit record numbers. However, early-stage growth, including next-generation biotherapeutics, stopped in 2020.