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Destination
India: Fastest growing Asian hub for clinical trials
The
US$ 75 million clinical research market in India is growing at
a CAGR of more than 25% for contract research among Asian countries.
According to a recent estimate by Frost & Sullivan, the contract
research market in India is growing faster than that of China,
Australia and even Japan, which has the largest share in Asia
at US$ 450 million. Japan has a CAGR of just above 15%. At present,
the global offshoring potential in life sciences and healthcare
is about US$ 220 billion, with an annual growth rate of 8-10 per
cent. India currently corners about US$ 280 million in this sector
and can garner about US$ 12 billion of this pie by 2015, according
to industry estimates.
As
per Frost & Sullivan, India's advantages lie in its large and
growing heterogeneous patient population, easy availability of
patients, speed of conducting clinical trials, growing pharmaceutical
R&D expenditure (US$ 109 million in 2004 compared to US$ 81 million
in 2000), availability of skilled labour force and conducting
of clinical trials at one-tenth the cost in western countries.
The extent of activity in the R&D investments by major drug manufacturers
is one of the critical drivers of the market, as increase in the
number of new drugs and devices will directly determine the number
of trials conducted per new drug. The increasing number of new
approvals (drugs & devices) every year, and the trend towards
more trials per drug invented, etc. are making the global market
players resort to several strategic moves, one of the major ones
being outsourcing.
However,
dearth of trained investigators, lack of proper infrastructure
including good storage facilities and regulatory hurdles and red
tapism are some of the major hurdles that the international pharmaceutical
companies face while outsourcing clinical research work to India.
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can direct your queries or comments to the authors
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Source:
Financial
Express (October 13, 2005)
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