Medical Affairs Outsourcing Market Size, Share, and Trends 2024 to 2034

The global medical affairs outsourcing market size was estimated at USD 1.82 billion in 2023 and is expected to be worth around USD 3.66 billion by 2033, expanding at a CAGR of 7.3% during the forecast period from 2024 to 2033.

Key Takeaways

• North America region was valued at USD 663.8 million in 2023.
• By Industry, the pharmaceutical segment was valued at USD 961.4 million in 2023. 
• By Services, the medical writing & publishing segment reached USD 607.6 million in 2023.

Medical Affairs Outsourcing Market in the U.S. 2024-2033

The U.S. medical affairs outsourcing market size was valued at USD 546.9 million in 2023 and is estimated to reach around USD 1,087.6 million by 2033, growing at a CAGR of 7.1% from 2024 to 2033.

North America region emerged as most dominating market place for the medical affairs outsourcing business in 2023 an estimated to mirror this predominance the period. Reasons such as vigorous FDA supervisors, existence of international life sciences and pharmaceutical giants and availability of talent pool are prospering the growth of the market in this region. The mounting figures of patent expirations along with escalating spending of research and development undertakings are some of the crucial factors persuading the event of the global medical affairs outsourcing market.

As rivalry in the international medical device market exaggerates, the U.S. medical businesses are progressively looking for means to decrease costs in manufacturing, clinical trials, research and development, and other medical services. Numerous Asian nationsbid a lower charge of labor such as China and India and skillful labor force. Merging this with the region’s fast-growing markets and growing mature populations propose encouraging openings for the U.S. medical device corporations outsourcing their affairs to Asia Pacific. For instance, at present elderly population in Japan is around 20% against 12% aged population in the U.S.

• North America reached USD 663.8 million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach USD 1,269.7 million by 2033, registering a CAGR of 6.7% from 2024 to 2033.
• Asia Pacific was valued at USD 596.6 million in 2023 and is expected to reach USD 1,365.0 million by 2033, with a CAGR of 8.6% from 2024 to 2033.
• Europe was reached at USD 351.1 million in 2023 and is anticipated to reach USD 612.9 million by 2033, registering a CAGR of 5.8% from 2024 to 2033.

Growth Factors

Current trends display an upsurge in subcontracting vital functional accomplishments predominantly in medical affairs including medical material, field-based medical teams and medical publications. Outsourcing medical affairs provides corporations cost-effective and flexible solution to address the budding issues and demands faced by the business. The regulatory setting is becoming rough due to amplified association among global regulatory bodies. As an outcome, compensations and drug approval need companies’ medical affairs to gather snowballing amounts of complicated, real-life patient outcomes data to establish product value.

Several countries are progressively intensifying their R&D expenditure that has prompted expansion of innovative products in the market. With the cumulative stringency by the particular regulatory authorities globally, a rising partnership among clinical research organizations, the drug developers and contract manufacturing organizations has been perceived to alleviate risks. As CMOs and CROs assist the corporations into reduce risks, companies are able to emphasis on their fundamental dealings. Hence, escalating research and development activities plus patent expirations are considered to be major growth influencers driving the global medical affairs outsourcing market.

Medical Affairs Outsourcing Market Scope

Impact of COVID-19

Decreased access to healthcare professionals & institutions:  This is due to the high burden of COVID- 19 patients & extended lockdown in several countries. The number of visits of Medical Scientific Liaisons (MSLs) & other medical affair professionals to HCPs & institutions has decreased to a significant extent. As a result of this, face-to-face communication, such as exchange of scientific information & gathering of insights, the key responsibilities of MSLs, were adversely impacted. The significance of these responsibilities is one of the main factors aiding expansion of MSL teams in the last decade. A complete shutdown led to a near cancellation of regular & planned MSL visits to HCPs & institutions.

Rise in the virtual engagements: This has been a direct result of reduced physical access to healthcare institutions & HCPs. To make sure that HCPs are informed regarding new & emerging devices, many stakeholders, comprising physician societies, have embarked on increasing virtual scientific engagements & medical education programs, many times in partnership with the industry. Developments of virtual delivery channels & introduction of new platforms, such as Zoom, have assisted this change. Moreover, MSL teams have moved to one-on-one virtual engagements with specialists & key opinion leaders for both, insight gathering & providing scientific information. The healthcare professionals have positively accepted this new mode of communication and find it suitable & valuable.

Services Insights

Different medical services analyzed in this research report include medical monitoring, medical writing & publishing, medical information, medical science liaisons and others. Out of all these services, medical writing & publishing appeared as most promising segment and garnered maximum revenue share of 33.41% in 2023. Currently, plentiful of the big pharma corporations are subcontracting their clinical data management to specialized medical writing & publishing service suppliers. Demand for professional medical writers is projected to grow considerably due to escalating introduction of assorted pharma products in the market. As a result, augmented need for professional medical writers is projected as the crucial influencers for growth of medical writing & publishing market segment.

The Medical Science Liaisons (MSLs) services segment projected to record fastest developing growth rate during assessment period.These are medical specialists with cutting-edge scientific training and are experts in cooperating intricate medical data to a diversity of stakeholders. The biopharma business sector is concentrating on the core undertakings associated to drug development than non-core actions including medical affairs. In order to decreases pending and profit from professional medical affairs services, biopharmafrims are subcontracting these services to the CROs or contract research organizations. Biotechnology businesses are further continuing at a great pace and are anticipated to offer a resilient competition to mid-size pharma firms during next few years.

Global Medical Affairs Outsourcing Market, By Services, 2020-2023 (USD Million)

Industry Insights

Global medical affairs outsourcing market report assessed different end-use industries making most of these outsourcing services in this research report including biopharmaceutical, pharmaceutical, and medical devices among others.

Among these, pharmaceutical segment dominated the global market by accounting prominent share more than 52.86% of the total revenue generated by market in 2023. This growth is attributed to the growing demand of medical affairs service for the groundwork of drafts of fresh patents due to expiration of different existing patents.

Global Medical Affairs Outsourcing Market, By Industry, 2020-2023 (USD Million)

Key Companies & Market Share Insights

The arrival of freely accessible medical data has stemmed in the development of the stakeholder landscape where newfangled and varied participants like advocacy groups and patients are now becoming crucial decision-makers. Besides, requirements for transparency and escalating public scrutiny augments suggestively to the compliance pressures already sensed by medical affairs to escalate integrity and advance stakeholder commitment. Corporations engaged in the medical affairs outsourcing business are anticipated to gather noteworthy return-on-investment (ROI) during forecast period due to the collective acceptance of business growth approaches like collaboration, acquisition and partnership among others.

Some of the significant players in the medical affairs outsourcing market include:

• ICON plc
• Wuxi Clinical Development, Inc
• Pharmaceutical Product Development, LLC
• Ashfield Healthcare Communications
• Indegene Inc.
• IQVIA Holdings Inc
• The Medical Affairs Company (TMAC)
• SGS SA
• Syneos Health Inc
• ZEINCRO Group

Segments Covered in the Report

This research study comprises complete valuation of the market revenue with the help of widespread quantitative and qualitative insights, and prognoses of the market. This report presents breakdown of market into forthcoming and niche segments. Additionally, this research study gauges market revenue growth and its drift at global, regional, and country from 2021 to 2033. This report includes market division and its revenue assessment by categorizing it depending on services, industry and region as follows:

By Services

• Medical Monitoring
• Medical Writing & Publishing
• Medical Information
• Medical Science Liaisons
• Others

By Industry

• Medical Devices
• Pharmaceutical
• Biopharmaceutical

By Regional Outlook

• North America
  • U.S.
  • Canada
• Europe
  • U.K.
  • Germany
  • France
• Asia Pacific
  • China
  • India
  • Japan
  • South Korea
• Middle East & Africa
• Latin America