The State of Respiratory in Clinical Research - 2020 & Beyond

<p><strong>What trends have you seen in respiratory in 2019?</strong></p><p>In previous years, there were a number of blockbuster drugs developed for conditions like asthma and COPD. However, these drugs are beginning to move off-patent, so the industry is beginning to see studies for generics taking place. Because these blockbuster drugs are still on the market, sponsors are instead looking for new indications to apply these treatments to, where they might achieve small benefits. In order to find these incremental effects, the size of the study must increase. However, respiratory trials are not immune from the industry-wide patient recruitment issue. Additionally, these new products are fairly niche and respond to a small subset of patients; as drug companies are testing a lot of the same mechanisms, this leads to more competition for an already small patient population. The shift in clinical research towards personalized medicine continues to exacerbate the problem. Finally, this new...