Brazil Rises to 2nd Worldwide in Clinical Trial Recruitment, Driven by Execution and Population Diversity
核心洞察
Brazil has climbed from 18th to 12th globally in initiated clinical trials, with a recent Fierce Biotech article positioning the country alongside Abu Dhabi and South Korea as a rising biotech hub.
In a Phase III rare disease program, Brazil ranked second worldwide in enrollment behind only the United States, contributing roughly 20% of global enrollment.
ODC Life Sciences (搜索) reports that across more than 50 trials over nine years, approximately 90% of programs where it led recruitment met their agreed enrollment targets.
Brazil has moved from 18th to 12th globally in initiated clinical trials, a shift that Daniel Zequeto, Founder of ODC Life Sciences (搜索), attributes not to cost advantages but to the region's ability to execute across the full clinical development chain. Writing on LinkedIn, Zequeto emphasized that maintaining this position "will take more than a cost advantage," pointing to Brazil's population diversity, universal healthcare system, scientific talent, and emerging genomic infrastructure as the foundations of its growing role in global drug development.
A recent Fierce Biotech article placed Brazil alongside Abu Dhabi and South Korea as regions competing for a larger role in the future of biotech. The article highlighted companies building that foundation, including Vesper Biotechnologies (搜索), which turns Brazilian academic science into biotech ventures, and gen-t (搜索), which is building genomic and phenotypic infrastructure for Brazil's highly diverse population.
The Critical Role of Execution Handoffs
Zequeto argued that assets and datasets alone do not become medicines, and that the region's success is determined in the operational handoffs that connect each stage of a trial. He identified four critical transitions where clinical development in Latin America is "won or lost": regulatory to ethics, ethics to site activation, site activation to first patient in, and patient identification to randomization.
"When those handoffs are owned, LATAM stops behaving like a secondary geography," Zequeto wrote. He described ODC Life Sciences (搜索)' work as "connecting regulators, ethics committees, research sites, investigators, referring physicians, and patients so that trials do not just open in LATAM, they deliver from it."
Evidence Across Three Phase III Programs
Zequeto detailed three programs where ODC Life Sciences (搜索) led patient identification and recruitment in Latin America, illustrating Brazil's performance against global benchmarks.
In a Phase III rare disease program, a retrospective review of pathology archives conducted with a centralized diagnostic partner identified more than 230 potential patients across Latin America. The region delivered approximately 20% of global enrollment, with Brazil ranking second worldwide behind only the United States.
In a global Phase III hematology program, Brazil was added later to accelerate enrollment. With 9.2% of subject-contributing sites, the country delivered 12.8% of global randomizations, achieving 3.47 patients per site against a global benchmark of 2.50, with a 63.4% screen-to-randomization rate.
In a Phase III biomarker-selected oncology trial, Brazil generated approximately 21% of global prescreenings and tied with the United States and France as the top enrolling country.
Across more than 50 trials over nine years, approximately 90% of the programs where ODC led recruitment met their agreed enrollment targets.
A Foundation Beyond Cost
Zequeto concluded that Brazil's advantage "will not be built on cost," but rather "on integration, speed, trust, and the ability to execute." This framing positions Latin America as a geography capable of delivering on enrollment and operational milestones at a level competitive with established trial markets, driven by its diverse patient population and the maturation of its research and genomic infrastructure.
The broader industry conversation is reflected in the "Clinical Development in LATAM: Brazil Unlocked" event, scheduled for Thursday, September 24, 2026, at 3:30 PM EDT at the MassBio Hub in Kendall Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts. The event will focus on the evolving landscape of clinical research and drug development in Brazil and across Latin America, including opportunities and practical considerations for sponsors, CROs, biotech companies, and other life-sciences organizations seeking to conduct clinical studies in the region.