Quintiles Unveils Its New E-Commerce Products--But Where's WebMD?

If ever an industry needed to find new ways of marketing itself, the currently floundering CRO business certainly fills the bill. A downturn that at first might have been shrugged off as a temporary slump resulting from a combination of major contract cancellations and a general slowdown in Big Pharma business due to the disruptive effects of drug company consolidation, increasingly seems to raise more fundamental questions about the continued viability of the CRO business model. In particular, CROs, once viewed as a way to tap into the profit-rich pharmaceutical industry without assuming all of the risks associated with drug development, now appear susceptible to the same sorts of hazards, without the same upsides, as their customers.

For years, and with increased urgency as of late, CRO executives have spoken of building deeper and longer term strategic...