Clinical research: An emerging field

At a time when the global economic slowdown has made the future of many youngsters uncertain, there is a silver lining in the form of clinical research.

Clinical research is the most important part of the development process of a drug when it is tested on human beings to evaluate its safety and efficacy.

According to industry estimates, the demand for clinical research professionals is expected to be over 50,000 in the Indian industry by 2010. The supply, however, is estimated at only a fraction of the total demand — 20,000 qualified professionals with about 800 students graduating out of India’s clinical research institutes per annum. Thus, there is a huge gap between the demand and supply for clinical research professionals in the growing pharmaceutical, healthcare and biomedical industries.

“In last three years there has been almost 300 per cent increase in the human resource development of clinical research professionals. We have produced more than 3000 clinical research professionals in the country who are working in India and abroad,” said S K Gupta, director general and dean, Institute of Clinical Research India (ICRI).

ICRI offers Masters in Clinical Research, Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Data Management, Pharmacovigolance, Clinical Trial Management and Advanced Post Graduate Diploma in Clinical Research and Quality Assurance.

Companies like Pfizer, Ranbaxy, Quintiles, Dr Reddy’s Laboratory, Novartis and iGate come for recruitment and offer salary packages between Rs 1.5-2 lakh per annum to freshers, say analysts. The salary packages increase substantially to almost Rs 80 lakh per annum on becoming an operations manager.

Clinical Research Education and Management Academy (CREMA) is another institute that offers professional one year part-time diploma courses in clinical research, pharmacovigilance and clinical data management. Vijay Moza, chairman CREMA, said, “Clinical research is a recession-proof industry and will grow. Due to a high demand for trained clinical research professionals, a career in this promises good salary along with high growth opportunities.”

Hitesh Gajaria, executive director, KPMG India, explains, “We can expect India’s clinical research market to be largely insulated from the ongoing recession. India offers relatively a low cost base for conducting clinical research operations. Costs of conducting clinical research in India are about 40-60 per cent that of the western countries clubbed with a large and diverse patient pool.”

“The Big Pharma will continue outsourcing their research and development operations to India and this market should thus more or less continue its historic growth momentum,” added Gajaria.