India set to become hub for clinical trials
New Delhi, May 29. (PTI): India is fast emerging, as an attractive destination for conducting global clinical trials, due to availability of vast pool of patients and also well trained medical professionals and sophisticated technological infrastructure.
The clinical research outsourcing market in India was valued at USD 69 million in 2005 and is expected to grow to USD 293 million by 2010. Most of the US and European nations are outsourcing clinical trials to India, says Mahesh Sawant of Healthcare Practice, Frost & Sullivan, a market research company.
"A huge patient population, genetically distinct groups, specialty hospitals with state-of-the-art facilities, nearly 7,00,000 hospital beds and 221 medical colleges, skilled English speaking investigators are India's trump cards," says Sawant.
"The entire world is watching the growth and the performance of India in this segment of business. There are positive signals and reports, which justify the trends for pharmaceutical sponsors to look seriously at India for carrying forward their drug development intitiatives," notes Dr Umakanta Sahoo, Head, India Operations, Chiltern International, a clinical research organisation.
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