Industry insists Australian clinical trials are internationally cost competitive contrary to 2012 report

SYDNEY, May 20, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Industry claims that a report of Australian clinical trial costs is flawed. The report (https://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/Documents/competitive-alternatives-special-report.pdf) on the global competitiveness of 14 countries came out this time last year, ranking Australia as the second most expensive country to run clinical trials, subsequent press accepted the report and said what a shame it was that Australia was so costly compared with other countries...

In the spirit of promoting Australia's advantages, timely for International Clinical Trials Day (20th May 2013), Australian R&D industry representatives are now making noise in response to the report. The report rankings were based on areas such as labour costs, transport, facility lease costs and utilities such as electricity. Exact data sources are unclear.

"The report should be judged in context with the data it used" says Luke Edington, Clinical Project Management (http://www.datapharmaustralia.com/about-us/our-leaders) at Datapharm Australia. "Broad economic indicators are not sufficient to draw solid conclusions on clinical trial management costs, and it is unfair to rank a country's R&D costs on these factors alone. It seems no consideration was given to R&D Tax incentive(s), regulatory environments, time to first patient, patient population access, Investigator fees & laboratory costs, recruitment rates, insurance, ethics fees, CRO operating costs and other quality dynamics." says Mr Edington

If you consider that the Australian R&D tax incentive was not included in this report, currently being up to 45%, this alone would have placed Australia competitively with Russia. "Foreign entities can claim R&D Tax incentives (http://www.swansonreed.com.au/product/45-rebate-for-australian-rd-costs/) through their Australian subsidiaries at 45 cents in the dollar, that means $450,000 for $1,000,000 foreign spend in Australia", says Adam Rogers, R&D Tax specialist at Swanson & Reed.

The message to industry, industry groups, reporters and decision makers in the field is to examine the data in detail before placing too much importance on the conclusions.

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SOURCE Research Receptor