Efficiency in the CRO industry, 2010-2019

Outsourcing to Contract Research Organizations (CROs) has become a widespread practice by pharmaceutical and biotechnological firms seeking to reduce risks and costs associated to the development of new products. This paper analyzes empirically the efficiency of the CROs industry by looking at a sample of firms operating in Europe over the years 2010-2019.

We compute efficiency scores of the firms in the sample by means of DEA non- parametric techniques. Basic results suggest that the sector achieves large levels of average efficiency, amounting to 0.716. Average efficiency increases over time in the time horizon considered. A second stage Tobit estimation implies that big firms exhibit higher levels of efficiency than medium size and small firms because large sizes facilitate the use of state-of-the-art technology for data collection and analysis and the accession to stable commercial alliances. Efficiency is also positively correlated with sound human resource and financial managements, and with a moderate size of the fixed assets held by the firm. These results suggest that more merges and acquisitions are expected in this sector in the near future.