The Triangle is a growing hub for the life sciences services/contract research organization industry – and when the CEO of the world’s biggest firm talks about future trends and opportunities, a lot of people listen.

On Thursday morning, they got a glimpse of the future as seen by Tom Pike. 

In the very last question of a lengthy conference call to discuss Quintiles’ third-straight $1 billion quarter, Pike was hit with a speculative question. And it wasn’t a simple one, either.

Well, simple to ask – basically, what’s the next big wave coming in life science services?

Pike answered quickly. It’s “risked-based monitoring” during clinical trials.

Earlier in the call, Pike discussed how clinical trials are growing more costly and complex – which he says is good news for contract research organizations, or CROs, like Quintiles.

The more complex, the more business.

The more lab tests required, the more business.

(And Quintiles’ most recent acquisition – Encore – is all about electronic medical records and analytics.)

Look for more news on RBM at Quintiles’ analyst day in September, Pike promosies.

Alexander Draper, with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey, poised the question about future developments in RBM. “Are we really at the very beginning and that’s something that drives out the next three or four years?” Is RBM “the next wave or change around trials?”

“Automated Reviews”

Here’s Pike’s response, via a transcript provided by financial news site SeekingAlpha:

“We are at the beginning of RBM. There’s no question. It’s not moving as quickly as one would like.

“This is an industry where you just have to get a trial right. And so people’s personal experience with how they’ve been successful with products in the past is definitely an influencer in how they conduct trials in the future.

“That being said, clearly, and many of you will come to our Analyst Day, I think it’s in September, you’ll see that we are the leader in that in terms of not only having technology that allows risk-based monitoring. And it is technology where there’s automated reviews of variables and alerts and things.

“So it’s a full technology. There is an approach — I mean, how we do it is we do it with low-cost country monitoring, which is very effective. We use medical doctors for many of the aspects of it use, where others use sort of business processors. And so what you’ll see when you visited us is I think you’ll see the leading solution, but I do think it’s going to take several years to really ramp.

“The interesting thing for us is the margin is actually better on the overall model than it is via the monitoring and things. And risk-based monitoring as a percentage standpoint is actually better for us. In terms of the only other thing, and we’re over time, is I think the real world, late phase business — we’ve been talking about it a lot today.

“But as you start seeing more progressive authorizations things, you’re going to see more need to capture real world data to ensure safety and look for adverse events and really understand the drug and larger population.

“And so we think, over the longer term, this is going to be a very significant part of the business. And so we think we’re well positioned for that.”

The full transcript can be read online.