Clinical Trial Industry Scaling Higher

In the present economic scenario, when most industry verticals are witnessing a downward growth slide, the biotech research and clinical trial industry in India is defying the trend and clocking an impressive growth.

India is turning out to be one of the most preferred destinations for conducting global clinical research trials. The number of clinical research projects that are being outsourced to Indian private small-scale healthcare and biotech research organisations have gone up substantially in the past few years. The rise in clinical trial research outsourcing to the Indian healthcare and research organisations has encouraged small players to ramp up their research activities and expand their operations.

Boost to clinical research trial companies

Of late, several global drug giants including Aventis, Pfizer, Novo Nordisk, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline, have started running clinical drug trials in India due to the low-cost advantage and the huge patient pool. As a result, 20-30% of the global clinical development activity is rapidly outsourced to Clinical Research Organisations (CROs) in India.

“Indian healthcare and biotech firms, conducting clinical research trials, are witnessing a substantial rise in their business due to the wide range of commercial benefits they offer, such as hassle-free recruitment of patients and cost savings. Multinational drug companies are also entering India drawn by the rich pool of technically skilled manpower in the country,” said K Vora, VP of SHRM Biotechnologies Private Limited, a mid-sized organisation offering extensive consultancy services in the areas of biopharmaceuticals and biotechnology.

According to the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation, the total number of clinical trials being conducted in India has grown two-fold, rising to 350 at the end of 2008 from 170 in 2006. The figures are further indicative of how the Indian private hospitals, engaged in global and local clinical trials, are gaining the goodwill of global drug companies.

“Increased outsourcing of clinical trials by research-based global drug companies to Indian firms is likely to increase in the near-term. Therefore, small research firms must incorporate good clinical-practice protocols and follow global standards to continue gaining research-based outsourcing contracts from international companies,” said Sangeet Kumar, Proprietor and Head of a healthcare centre in Ranchi, Modern Diagnostics.

Going by the tremendous rise witnessed in global clinical research activities conducted by the Indian firms in the recent past, the growth prospects of the Indian clinical trial industry seems bright.

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