The global market for electronic Clinical Outcome Assessment (eCOA) solutions is expected to rise at an exponential rate in the coming years owing to factors such as the growing adoption of electronic clinical outcome assessment by medical research experts, according to a report by TMR Research.
The increasing adoption of cloud based platforms across and the emergence of cloud healthcare solutions will fuel growth, the report added.
In 2015, the Journal of Clinical Studies projected that recently seven per cent of all the trials are integrating electronic clinical outcome assessment solutions and is expected to rise by almost 20 per cent by the end of 2018. With the healthcare sector witnessing substantial growth, the need for research studies for developing novel treatments and drugs is also rising. The growing number of research studies has further intensified the demand for centralized data capture equipment and technologies. Thus, the above factors are expected to propel the demand for electronic clinical outcome assessment solutions in the near future.
Furthermore, rising weight on pharmaceutical manufacturers in order to expurgate overall prices for new drug development processes has caused in their rising predisposition from paper-based processes towards electronic data capturing. Data capturing through electronic clinical outcome assessment solution platforms enhances the quality of information which is received, complements the data collection processes, and provides noteworthy value to its subscribers, such as data analysis. Electronic based services for capturing data and assessing it to address the challenges of paper based records is rising with increasing patient compliance. They are also known for eliminating the challenges related to data variance and minimizing the cost of site monitoring, the TMR Research report points out.
Companies operating in the global electronic clinical outcome assessment solutions market are implementing strategies such as geographic enhancement, launch of new product, enhancement of distribution channel, partnership agreements, and acquisitions. For instance, in February 2017, CRF Health proclaimed a partnership with Vodafone for enhancing the service offered to clinical trial service providers and their patients. This particular agreement allows CRF to employ the Machine-to-Machine platform of Vodafone.
Region-wise, North America is expected to lead the market in terms of consumption in the coming years owing to the prevalence of manufacturers of medical device, advanced technology research centres, and hospitals and universities along with enhanced healthcare establishments.
According to an earlier report by Grand View Research, Inc., the global eCOA solutions market is expected to reach US$ 2.16 billion by 2025. The complexity in healthcare information management is anticipated to fuel the demand for eCOA solutions in coming years, the report had pointed out. These solutions deliver accurate and timely health information and reduce burden of patients enrolled in clinical trials.
eCOA measures overall mental state, patient symptoms, and the progression of a disease. Electronic diaries and electronic Patient Reported Outcomes (ePRO) are a part of eCOA platforms. Electronic diaries help document patient response. These are used as support systems for ePRO. In all the applications of clinical outcome assessment systems, the compliance rates are more than 90 per cent, which helps accelerate research procedures.
In addition, assessment systems help detect probable adverse conditions in advance for patients, which is crucial for taking preventive measures to avoid adverse effects in future. The ePRO platforms transfer real-time data from the patients to healthcare professionals for accurate decision-making and better evaluation of a patient's health. Thus, the adoption of these platforms is expected to grow in near future.
Growing adoption of software solutions during research studies, high R&D expenditure by pharmaceutical companies, favourable government grants to support clinical trials, and widening base of potential customers are some of the key contributing factors for market growth.
Electronic clinical outcome assessment (eCOA) solutions quantify a patients overall state of mind, symptoms in a patient, the impact of a particular disease, and how the patient functions in this condition. Electronic clinical outcome assessment can be employed for determining if a drug has been established to deliver treatment benefits. Electronic clinical outcome assessment solutions include patient-reported outcome (PRO), clinician-reported outcome (ClinRO), and observer-reported outcome (ObsRO). There are several end users of electronic clinical outcome assessment such as in hospitals, healthcare centres, and Contact Research Organizations (CROs) among others. The end user segment that held the leading share in 2016 and is expected to exhibit exponential growth over the coming years. This growth can be attributed to the rising pressure on pharmaceutical companies in order to save the total clinical development studies costs.
Overall the global e-clinical solutions market is expected to expand substantially due to the increasing operational costs & regulatory requirements related to clinical research studies, the rising acceptance of software solutions during clinical trials, and the surge in R&D expenditure in pharmaceutical companies. In addition, e-clinical solutions in Asia Pacific are on the rise owing to the growing number of clinical trials especially across developing countries. Developing markets including India, China, Korea, and Taiwan have become good destinations for the outsourcing of clinical trials due to the low service costs and presence of a large population. However, concerns over patient data privacy and the lack of skilled research professionals are hampering the implementation of e-clinical solution. On the other hand, high operational costs associated with e-clinical solutions are constraining the e-clinical solutions market.
According to a report by Zion Market Research, the increasing demand for the discovery of new drugs with the help of clinical trials and research and development expects to augment the growth of the global e-clinical solution software market. The market is also driven due to the growing need for standardization of data and efficient data management. The e-clinical solution software provides the benefits such as improved productivity of drugs and reduced time during clinical trials coaxes several end users to adopt latest technologies.
Rise in the number of clinical trials, the increasing investments made by the governments to digitize the clinical solutions, and growth of pharmaceutical companies are some factors that expect to make a major impact on the e-clinical software market in the North American region. Asia Pacific will show a steady progress in the global market owing to the huge patient base. The medical tourism industry has emerged in this region and the maturing clinical research organizations (CROs) estimate to have a positive influence on the regional market growth.
The top end-users in the global e-clinical solution software market are the healthcare sector, CROs and the pharmaceutical sector. The pharmaceutical sector will dominate the global market as a number of market players are focusing on developing an improved and new line of drugs, the report adds.
E-clinical is a term used in a clinical study with reference to electronic applications which are web-based tools employed to capture live data from clinical trials for faster and better execution. Additionally, e-clinical solutions aid efficient planning, tracking, and execution of this data from different geographic areas. Furthermore, they also improve relationships within departments such as site coordinators of medical affairs and clinical investigators. E-clinical solutions refer to a technology which helps accelerate the process of clinical development and aggregate & standardize the collected data for analysis at an individual patient level as well as for cross trail views. The use of e-clinical solutions has simplified the acquisition of analytics and clinical research data. Device & drug tracking, integrated eCRF note changing, real-time notifications, real-time reporting, and configurable report building are a few important features of e-clinical solutions.