eClinical Solutions Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 - 2026)

Market Overview

The eClinical Solutions Market was estimated to be USD 6,550 million in 2020 is expected to reach USD 13,250 million by 2026 with a CAGR of 12.5% during the forecast period.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an inflection point for the eClinical solutions market. Most pharmaceutical and biotechnological companies have focused their R&D efforts to aid in developing a vaccine against COVID-19. Many companies have invested a significant amount of resources to utilize analytics in the fight against COVID-19. In June 2020, eClinical Solutions LLC, a leading cloud-based enterprise software provider, collaborated with Karyopharm Therapeutics on randomized clinical trials for low-dose Selinexor (a drug) among hospitalized patients with severe cases of COVID-19. Due to the large volume of clinical trials being conducted across the world, there is an increase in demand for software that can be used to expedite the process of vaccine development. Also, clinical trials for the COVID-19 vaccine involve studies being undertaken simultaneously in different countries. For example, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine applied research in countries like Argentina, South Africa, Brazil, Germany, Turkey, and the United States. Collating such a large amount of data from various clinical trials in different nationalities requires advanced analytics software. This is expected to have a positive effect on market growth.

The major market drivers include enormous data mounting from the healthcare industry, a rising number of clinical trials, and government emphasis on clinical research.

The costs and risks associated with developing new therapeutics, which are majorly related to drug trials, continue to rise. This trend is expected to gain momentum with the advent of personalized medicines and the proliferation of virtual pharma companies, emerging as entities without the traditional large-scale pharma capabilities.

With the increasing prevalence of the Internet of Things (IoT) and digitization of healthcare, the amount of data being produced is enormous and contains information that can be easily accessed with electronic data mining, which was earlier impossible with paper records. According to the World Economic Forum records from 2019, hospitals produce around 50 petabytes of data per year. The information encompasses a variety of areas like clinical notes, lab tests, medical images, sensor readings, genomics, and operational and financial data. eClinical solutions are expected to have a significant impact in this area.

In low- and middle-income countries, healthcare infrastructure faces many challenges in providing high-quality, affordable, and universally-accessible care. In response, policy-makers, donors, and program implementers are searching for innovative approaches to eliminate the geographical and financial barriers to healthcare. eClinical solutions are expected to fill this gap and provide quality healthcare in remote locations. Furthermore, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare systems are stretched, and eClinical solutions are being utilized to provide logistical support in the distribution of essential services.

Also, the need to maintain transparency and eliminate redundancy and forgery of medical research-related data are the primary reasons for the widespread adoption of eClinical solutions in the market.

Scope of the Report

As per the scope of the report, eClinical is a term used within the biopharmaceutical domain. eClinical solutions manage the clinical technologies and expertise to facilitate the acceleration of the clinical development process.

The market is segmented by product type into clinical data management systems (CDMS), clinical trial management systems (CTMS), randomization and trial supply management, electronic data capture (EDC), electronic clinical outcome assessments (eCOA) and electronic patient-reported outcomes (ePRO), clinical analytics platforms, electronic trial master file (eTMF), and Other Product Types. By deployment mode, the market is segmented into cloud-based eClinical solutions and on-premise eclinical solutions. By end user, the market is segmented into pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, contract research organizations (CROs), and other end users, and by geography, the market is segmented into North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Middle East and Africa, and South America. The market report also covers the estimated market sizes and trends for 17 different countries across significant regions globally. The report offers the value (in USD million) for the above segments.

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Key Market Trends

Clinical Data Management Systems Segment, by Product Type, is Expected to Dominate the Market

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies are investing significantly in R&D. Many organizations operating in this field are conducting clinical trials for vaccines and treatments against COVID. Across the world, there have been nine vaccines that have received approval for use against COVID-19. A further 56 other candidates are in various stages of clinical development. As the number of clinical trials is expected to increase in the coming months, the demand for robust eClinical solutions is simultaneously expected to observe a surge.

Historically, clinical trial activities, including recruitment, retention, delivery of interventions, and data collection, were conducted using conventional methods such as ‘face-to-face', physical form filings, and so on. Over the years, a dramatic change has been observed in terms of clinical trials being conducted with the adoption of e-technologies.

Researchers are now incorporating electronic tools for various procedures involved in clinical trials, such as developing protocols, communicating with study personnel, randomizing participants, collecting data, analyzing results, and others. For example, Medidata Inc. offers an eClinical Solution called Rave EDC, which provides fast implementation and maximum control for clinical studies. According to the company, until the end of 2020, 17,000 studies (with one-third ongoing ) and more than 4 million patient experiences have been recorded using Rave EDC.

Many software tools are now available for clinical data management, such as ORACLE CLINICAL, CLINTRIAL, MACRO, RAVE, and eClinical Suite. All of these have more or less similar features. However, now the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies are shifting toward customized software tools related to eClinical solutions. For instance, OpenClinica LLC provides an open-source software of EDC (electronic data capture) and CDMS (clinical data management system) for optimizing clinical trials. Customized software such as these are expected to see an increase in demand in the coming years.

With the adoption of electronic medical records, a growing amount of data is being generated through automated medical equipment and monitoring devices. The adoption of IoT in medical devices necessitates the need for efficient data management systems.

In response to this, many of the companies are developing a single platform that is expected to observe a greater adoption. One such example is Perceptive MyTrials designed by Parexel, a single platform for accessing data, information, and applications related to clinical trials. These emerging comprehensive platforms are further expected to support clinical trial-related strategies and user workflow.

A major trend driving this segment is the integration of the CDMS with clinical randomization, supply management, trial, and patient recruitment solutions. Companies are also developing their existing eClinical tools for extending the capabilities and further easing the whole clinical trial conduction. For instance, in June 2020, eClinical Solution LLC, a cloud-based enterprise software developer added connectors to the Formedix, Omnicomm, Box, and elluminate, which would allow the users to integrate data from various clinical systems. The volume and variety of clinical data are continuing to grow, with most trials relying on five or more different data sources for their studies. Thus, the clinical analytics platform is expected to play an important role by providing services such as identifying missed visits and forecasting upcoming future visits, including those for dosing, which have a greater likelihood to be missed based on a variety of data sources.

Additionally, the developing economies are expected to drive the growth of the market due to the increasing adoption of these systems, government funding to support clinical trials, and the presence of a large patient base.

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