Clinical Trial Trap
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
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Indian Journal of Medical Ethics
