Medical Affairs Outsourcing Market - Databook 2025 to 2034

The global medical affairs outsourcing market size accounted for USD 1,970 million in 2024 and is predicted to touch around USD 3,950 million by 2034, growing at a CAGR of 7.2% from 2025 to 2034.

Highlights of the Medical Affairs Outsourcing Market

• North America dominated the global medical affairs outsourcing market in 2024.
• Asia Pacific is anticipated to grow at the fastest rate in the market during the forecast period.
• By services, the medical writing & publishing segment holds a dominant presence in the market in 2024.
• By services, the medical science liaisons segment is expected to grow at the fastest rate in the market during the forecast period.
• By industry, the pharmaceutical segment holds a dominant presence in the market in 2024.
• By industry, the medical devices segment is expected to grow at the fastest rate in the market during the forecast period.

Industry Valuation and Growth Rate Projection

Medical affairs outsourcing is the method of healthcare or pharmaceutical firms contracting with external partners or organizations to manage numerous medical affairs operations, like medical information support, pharmacovigilance, medical writing, scientific affairs, and medical communications. It permits businesses to access specialized resources and expertise that they might not have in-house, driving their abilities in areas like medical writing for clinical trial support, regulatory submissions, and medical data distribution.

Medical Affairs Outsourcing Market: Stats and Figures

• Hardman & Co approximates that the prescription drug (Rx) globally market grew from 9.2% in 2024 to $1,127bn, from $1,032bn in 2023. Reported expansion, includes the ever-reducing COVID-19 contribution from therapies and vaccines, and a small forex negative, was 7.6%.
• The top 20 drug firms by sales reinvested a raised 22.5% of Rx drug sales back into the latest drug development, spending $167bn out of the total expenses of $194bn by the 45 largest firms. The average R&D investment was $8.3bn, ranging from $17.9bn (Merck & Co) to $3.5bn (Bayer).

Industry Leader Announcements

• Dr. Steve Cutler, Chief Executive Officer, ICON plc, said

“The combined company will create a new paradigm for accelerating clinical research and bringing new medicines and devices to market. Both ICON and PRA have track records of robust growth and performance, and we are ready to build on this unrivalled position of strength, utilising the outstanding talent in both organisations. With broader and deeper operational scale combined with innovative technology and real-world data solutions, we will enable all customers to reduce their development time and cost. We will be the leading provider of decentralised and hybrid trial solutions through the integration of our data capabilities, health platforms, and Accellacare site network. The transaction will be highly accretive from full year 1 post-close.”

• Manish Gupta, Chairman and CEO of Indegene

Manish Gupta, Chairman and CEO of Indegene, highlighted the significance of this move, stating, “Spain is fast emerging as a key hub for life sciences companies in Europe. With our new presence, we can co-innovate and collaborate even more closely with clients, helping them leverage AI and data science to modernize commercialization and accelerate business transformation.”

How AI Has Benefitted the Medical Affairs Outsourcing Market

AI algorithms excel at determining trends and patterns in multi-dimensional and complex medical information. AI-based tools can help condense huge amounts of scientific literature, real-world information, and clinical trials to determine relevant information and extract significant insights much quicker compared to manual analysis.

With AI-derived literature review software methods, data extraction times are decreased when information is reused over literature reviews, transforming into more effective staff time by decreasing duplication of effort, mainly compared with physical extraction.

AI and machine learning methods can analyze vast datasets, considering patient experience information, safety assessments, clinical trial results, claims, electronic health records, and other real-world data to determine correlations, patterns, and predictive models.

Geographical Insights

The medical affairs outsourcing market is experiencing significant growth, with North America maintaining its position as the dominant region while Europe emerges as the rapidly growing market. The Asia Pacific region is projected to be the fastest-growing in the market during the forecast period.

North America

North America dominated the global market in 2024. In the last few years, countries like Canada and even the United States have started implementing regulatory procedures to standardize a number of therapeutics. Factors such as the opioid crisis in the United States have led to a public push for regulations on drug development and prescriptions. Coupled with the growing research and development in the biotechnology sector in North America, the requirement for large biopharmaceutical firms to outsource numerous medical affairs services is continuing to grow. The area has developed research institutions and healthcare systems that permit high-quality medical education and clinical research. This elaborate ecosystem assists taps into medical affairs services, allowing for the efficient transmission of medical understanding and involvement with healthcare providers.

Europe

Europe is experiencing rapid growth in the medical affairs outsourcing market during the forecast period. It has a vast stretch of specialty treatment realms and specialists, like unique diseases and developed therapy medical products (ATMPs). Outsourcing medical affairs operations permits businesses to access the uncommon expertise and resources needed for these complex areas, hence enhancing market growth.

APAC

Asia Pacific (APAC) is projected to be the fastest-growing in the market during the forecast period. Rising healthcare demands generate a need for outsourced medical affairs services to assist in negotiating complex regulatory frameworks and, fortunately, interface with local healthcare providers and patients. Improving economic conditions and the growing environmental and lifestyle factors such as high pollution, smoking and alcohol consumption rates is leading to more people falling sick in the region. This is expected to lead to growing healthcare spending in the coming few decades. This rise in healthcare investment permits the growth of medical affairs activities, mainly those outsourced to specialized service providers.

Recent Developments

• In February 2025, Stratevi LLC discloses the initiation of its medical affairs methods. This strategic stretch will permit Stratevi to more broadly address its client partner's demands.
• In January 2025, the University of California and GE HealthCare disclosed the initial launch of a Care Innovation Hub. The joint research merge, including the UCSF Dept. of Radiology & Biomedical Imaging, targets to understand meaningful clinical difficulties in accessibility to developed medical imaging, management of neurological, noninvasive diagnosis, neurodegenerative disorder, and precision oncology.
• In April 2024, IQVIA disclosed it has expanded its collaboration with tech firm Salesforce to assist in expanding its consumer engagement policy for the life sciences domain. The firms will use IQVIA's Orchestrated Customer Engagement Platform, with its information and analytics, and Salesforce's CRM to generate the Salesforce Life Sciences Cloud for consumer engagement.

Competitive Landscape

The medical affairs outsourcing market is united in nature due to the existence of a few firms operating worldwide and regionally. The competitive landscape is defined by determining firms, including ICON plc, Pharmaceutical Product Development, LLC, Indegene Inc., Wuxi Clinical Development, Inc., and Ashfield Healthcare Communications.

• Company Name: ICON Public Limited Company
• Year of Incorporation: 1990
• Headquarters: Dublin, Ireland

ICON Plc offers outsourced development services to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical device industries globally. The firm provides research services in genomics, cancer, central nervous system, endocrine, cardiovascular, and metabolic disorders, medical devices, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), gastrointestinal, ophthalmology, rare and orphan diseases, vaccines, transplant and immunology, and women’s health, amongst others.

• Company Name: INDEGENE LIMITED
• Year of Incorporation: 1998
• Headquarters: India

Indegene targets delivering impactful outcomes for its clients, the firm faces the difficulties of staying beyond of the curve in a rising dynamic and competing landscape. By using its expertise and the latest technologies, it remains a formidable power in tailoring the future of the healthcare domain.

• Company Name: IQVIA Holdings Inc.
• Year of Incorporation: 2016
• Headquarters: Durham, North Carolina, United States

IQVIA Holdings Inc. offers data, clinical research services, and novel technological solutions. The firm harnesses information and science to provide an array of solutions to healthcare firms, which include commercialization, clinical development, and technologies that follow remarkable healthcare results. IQVIA CORE is a modified solution that offers actionable insights via transformative technology, big data, and analytics with broader industry recognition in diseases, human behavior, regions, and scientific advances.

Annual Revenue: ICON Public Limited Company vs INDEGENE LIMITED vs IQVIA Holdings Inc. 2022-24 (Millions of US$)