A two-day symposium on clinical trial 'CLINICON 2010' will be held at Narayana Health City in Bangalore from March 26 to 27, 2010. The event will help bring together experts in the field of clinical research.
It will highlight practical experiences of professionals. This could be a training and teaching ground for all those who wish to take up clinical research as a career. The platform will be ideal for students, medical professionals and hospital administrators to help create awareness and provide an in-depth knowledge of the industry, according to the organizers.
India has become the hub of top-quality clinical research. It is the most favoured destination for the pharmaceutical R&D and clinical research. The key reasons are a 100 million plus English speaking people which is the largest outside of US. There are over two million science post graduates. There is a large pool of treatment- naïve patients from multiethnic and multiracial backgrounds. This has led to easy patient recruitment and compliance. There is also favourable regulatory policies with an updated Schedule Y.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has laid down guidelines for conduct of Clinical Research and the DCGI licenses all approved protocols. The Clinical Trial Registry of India has made it mandatory for registration of all clinical trials in India. In spite of all this, there is lack of awareness among the student community about the potential of clinical research as a career and among the medical professionals about the clinical value of research.
Other factors which are driving the Clinical Research industry in India are the cost effective business operations, international regulatory approvals for GMP/GLP/GCP, maximum number of approved GMP plants outside USA, quality management, technology and infrastructure. Other factors include the time zone difference facilities 24/7 support, presence of all pharma majors & also in-house CROs set up by leading pharma companies, IT industry and availability of skilled manpower.
In terms of disease prevalence, India accounts for 30 million patients with cardiovascular diseases, 25 million with Type 2 diabetes, 10 million with psychiatric disorders, two million cases of cancer with 500,000 cases detected every year.
The medical expertise includes 6 lakh practising physicians, 14,000 hospitals with 7 lakh beds and 17,000 medical graduates per year.
In 2003, a total of Rs 75 crore was earned in the field of clinical trials in India with only about 800 staffs being involved. In 2010, it is estimated that over Rs 875 crore would be the revenue and about 20,000 staffs would be involved in clinical trials.
The Mckinsey report infers that more than 50,000 professionals will be required in the field of Clinical research in India alone. Science, pharmacy and medicine graduates can look forward to exciting and rewarding career opportunities in clinical research.
Accenture, sanofi aventis and Thrombosis Research Institute are recognized leaders in the field of Translational Clinical Research. Narayana Hrudayalaya Research Centre has brought together the best brains from these institutes to enable students and medical professionals to benefit from their experience, stated the organizers.
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