Nature (Vol7, pp13-14) publishes an article by Thiers et al. about “Trends in the globalization of clinical trials”. The article indicates that 66% of all clinical trial sites in the world are in North America, Europe and Oceania currently. Countries in emerging regions (Eastern Europe, Latin America, Asia, Middle East and Africa) represented only 8% of sites conducting biopharmaceutical clinical trials in 2002. In 2006, they represented 20% of site involved in biopharmaceutical trials. This shows a rapid growth of emerging countries. It is preoccupying that the average relative annual growth rate in certain countries in traditional clinical research regions is negative: -12.0% in Canada, -6.5% in the USA and -4.0% in France. In contrast, the growth rate in China, Russia and India is strongly positive (47%, 33% and 19.6%, respectively), although starting from a much lower base. Crossover interprets these data as a warning signal to healthcare institutions in traditional countries, who have to professionalize the organization of their clinical research offer and adopt sophisticated marketing techniques.