For A Few Guineas

Why clinical trials need monitored

• There is no centralised monitoring mechanism
  
• Big clinical trials are being outsourced to India. Pharma firms see the Indian volunteer as naive.
  
• The number of people taking part in tests is to go up to 1,00,000 by 2010. The clinical trials business will be worth $1 bn by then.
  
• Many illegal trials are being conducted without consent from volunteers who are illiterate and poor.

"India represents a largely untapped resource for clinical trials:huge patient base, diversity of diseases, increasingly accommodating regulatoryenvironment, drug-naive population...good patient compliance, state-of-the-art hospitalfacilities...competitive costs. India has diseases of the tropical world plus diseases ofdeveloped countries."
—Promo of US-based iGate Clinical Research International's Mumbai chapter,hardselling the "India advantage" to pharma companies