ICON plc, (NASDAQ: ICLR) a world-leading healthcare intelligence and clinical research organisation, has been rated as one of the top-performing contract research organisations (CRO) for phase 1 clinical trials in a benchmarking report from the independent pharmaceutical market research company Industry Standard Research (ISR). ICON outpaced the average phase 1 performance scores of other large CROs, solidifying its position as a premier partner for early phase clinical studies.
The report, based on extensive feedback from 159 industry professionals, underscored ICON's dominance across a wide range of performance metrics and highlights the company's unwavering commitment to innovation, operational excellence, and customer satisfaction.
Key highlights from the report include:
- Sponsor satisfaction: For phase 1 research, ICON outperformed all other large CROs claiming the highest overall sponsor satisfaction score of 7.4 on a scale of 1-10.
- Outstanding operational metrics: ICON outperformed the average performance score of other large CROs in all 17 operational metrics, with a considerable lead differential in 14. These metrics are grouped into three categories of critical service capabilities including delivery metrics (such as adhering to project timelines), staff characteristics (like therapeutic expertise), and accessibility metrics (clinic availability, for example).
- Robust brand strength: Across the four brand strength performance metrics of familiarity, leadership, reported recent use, and preference, ICON was the only large CRO to improve its scores across the board compared to ISR's 2024 iteration of this research, with the largest gains in leadership and preference.
- Consistency of excellence: For six consecutive years, ICON has outperformed the weighted average performance scores of the other large CROs in phase 1 clinical trials, demonstrating sustained excellence and reliability.
"ICON's strong results in this report reflect the dedication, expertise, and innovation that drive our teams globally," said Steve Cutler, CEO. "Our consistent leadership in phase 1 clinical trials is a testament to our ability to meet and exceed client expectations, deliver high-quality outcomes, and advance breakthroughs in early-phase development."
The benchmarking report used a rigorous methodology to ensure results reflected ICON's true impact and performance in the competitive phase 1 landscape. ISR screened participants to ensure relevance of role and responsibility, and mandated a recent interaction with a CRO. The survey data was collected in Q4 2024.
For more information, please visit www.iconplc.com/earlyclinical
About ICON plc
ICON plc is a world-leading clinical research organisation powered by healthcare intelligence. From molecule to medicine, we advance clinical research providing outsourced services to pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical device and government and public health organisations. We develop new innovations, drive emerging therapies forward and improve patient lives. With headquarters in Dublin, Ireland, ICON employed approximately 41,250 employees in 97 locations in 55 countries as at March 31, 2025. For further information about ICON, visit: www.iconplc.com.
About ISR Market Research
ISR utilises primary research methodologies to offer novel insights into the drug development industry. As an independent market research partner focusing on the life sciences space, ISR helps clients make data-informed decisions with specificity and precision that generalist firms can't match. ISR's analysts are industry experts in their own right with over 15 years of experience in this niche. They also diligently curate membership for ISR's Life Science Panel of respondents. Panel members are from a wide spectrum of geographies and job levels across a variety of roles responsibilities, and their valuable experiential data informs both ISR's off-the-shelf syndicated reports and robust custom research capabilities.
https://isrreports.com/
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