Bioinformatics Institute of India: Pharma Department

West Storms into India For Clinical Research, Pharmacovigilance Next Growth Path For CROs

India's clinical research organization (CROs) are set for exponential growth going by the number of assignments which are coming in here. The global economic slowdown which has seriously impacted wetern world has benefited the Indian clinical research industry. Scores of assignments are pouring into conduct clinical trials, pharmacovigilance studies and data management works.

The country is considered as a hub for clinical trials by pharma multinational companies (MNCs) primarily because of the diverse disease patient pool, scientific acumen, hospital infrastructure that help to provide the high quality and less expensive work. These aspects have made the recession hit international companies to off load assignments to India, said Dr. Ramananda S Nadig, dean and chief operating officer, Clinical Research Education and Management Academy(CREMA).

Pharma MNCs are also exploiting India's competencies in Information Technology and its strong low cost skill-set by setting up centers for their global clinical dwwata management function in India.

According to Dr. Saral Thangam, technical director, Lotus Clinical Research Academy, the key attraction towards India is the availability and confidence in the qualified trained personel comprising of pharmacy graduates and doctors who are sound in spoken and written English.

In fact, the global recession has led companies in the West lagely look at low cost markets which include India is preffered over China. However, India is preffered over China in the area of clinical record documentation only because of our English knowledge, she added.

Western companies are eager to set up phramacovigilance centers in India. The CROs here have demonstrated competence in quality deliverables in human studies and pharmacovigilance is an extension of this which covers reporting of adverse drug reaction (ADR) and post marketing surveillance. In fact, for CRO pharmacovigilance is a logical extension. Even Indian pharma companies have started pharmacovigilance as backened services. IT majors like Accenture, TCS and Infosys are particularly focusing on pharmacovigilance, said Sudhir Pai, managing director, Lotus Clinical Research Academy.