Contract Research Growing in North Carolina

Industry Expansions May Create 3,100 New Jobs

By Barry Teater
Vice President, Corporate Communications

North Carolina, already the world's leading center for contract research organizations, is entering a renaissance era of CRO company growth and job creation.

Five CRO companies have announced expansions or relocations in recent months that will bring up to 3,300 new high-paying jobs to the Research Triangle area in the next five years.

• Durham-based Quintiles Transnational, the world's largest CRO company with more than $2 billion in projected revenue this year, will hire as many as 1,000 workers by 2011.
• Health Decisions is expanding its Durham headquarters to accommodate 200 new employees.
• INC Research of Raleigh will hire up to 1,100 employees and invest at least $17 million in its operations.
• By the end of the year, PRA International of Reston, Va., will relocate its corporate headquarters to Raleigh, and it plans to hire 500 employees during the next five years.
• Synteract of San Diego will expand its three-person office in Morrisville by an unspecified number of employees.

Total employment at North Carolina's 87 CRO companies would swell to 20,732 from the current 17,532 if the growth pans out as planned. That's nearly a 19 percent increase, not counting potential expansions by the state's 82 other CRO companies.

"We're seeing more demand for the services they provide," says Dr. Mark Dibner, founder and president of BioAbility, a biotechnology consulting firm in Research Triangle Park.

"Big Pharma is outsourcing more as the cost of clinical trials rises and there are more FDA rules," Dibner says. "The FDA has gotten more cautious, requiring more (drug-safety) studies."

CRO companies help biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical companies get their drugs to market faster and cheaper by providing a wide array of contract services including pre-clinical testing, clinical trial monitoring, data management and regulatory consulting. They employ a variety of employees including pharmacologists, biostatisticians, data management specialists and clinical research associates -- often trained as nurses.

North Carolina's CRO expansions come on the heels of industry contractions in recent years. "I see the pendulum swinging back now with greater demand," Dibner says. CROs are projected to generate $26 billion worldwide by 2010, up from $14 billion in 2005, according to the industry journal Thomson CenterWatch.

Finding 3,300 New Employees

The CRO boom will test North Carolina's capacity to provide trained workers for the onrush of new jobs. Some CRO companies will likely raid top staff from competing firms, although some firms are requiring employees to sign agreements promising not to work for competing companies.

But Dibner is confident that the state's universities and community colleges will produce most of the new workers needed. He cites the clinical research programs of the N.C. Community College System; the pharmacy schools at Campbell University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and the biostatistics programs at Duke University, N.C. State University and UNC. "The community college system deserves a lot of credit for training in that area."

Jobs not filled by graduates of these programs or company raiding will likely be filled by trailing spouses of people moving to the Research Triangle area for other jobs and by North Carolinians living in outlying areas. "People could commute in from Rocky Mount and Wilson," Dibner says.

The spate of CRO expansions will boost the region's economy because CRO jobs pay exceptionally well. The average salary for all CRO jobs in North Carolina is about $100,000, according to a national survey by Contract Pharma, an industry trade journal. Nationally, salaries for clinical research associates average about $50,000; jobs requiring a bachelor's degree average $80,000; jobs requiring a master's degree average $90,000; and jobs demanding a doctorate average $120,000.