The Association of Contract Research Organisations (ACRO) India was founded and registered in India in February 2005. The Association has been formed under the aegis of Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) for putting all CROs' operating in India on one common platform will be used to promote quality research, uphold ethics, share best practices, promote synergies amongst member, to deliberate and action on common concerns, especially with regard to Indian regulations and industry environment.

ACRO will represent the interests of Indian CROs to regional, national and international authorities and organizations. The Association is an independent, non-profit organization with a global perspective.

Its objective is to promote reputation and recognition of Indian CROs, establish benchmarks and share best practices, develop activity metrics (market evolution, market analysis, develop relations with decision makers to get comprehensive and reliable predictions etc), leverage each others strength for wider delivery capabilities, achieve global excellence standards in professionalism, accuracy, precision in output through regulatory and institutional bodies.

According to Dr SP Vasireddi, founding chairman of ACRO, Indian Contract Research businesses have come to the forefront in the recent years to support the domestic and global pharmaceutical and bio-tech sectors in drug development. Ever increasing cost pressures are encouraging global pharma companies to source CRO services from emerging markets such as India.

It is estimated that Indian CROs occupy a share of 2 to 3 per cent of the global market and have been aspiring to reach a billion dollar size by 2010.

The executive committee is headed by Dr SP Vasireddi, chairman and managing director, Vimta Labs Limited; Dr Arvind Lal, chairman & managing director, Dr Lal Path Labs is the vice chairman; Dr BR Das director- R&D, SRL Ranbaxy Ltd, is the secretary.

The members at ACRO include Ashish Kumar Dasgupta, director, Lambda Therapeutic Research Ltd; Venkat Jasti, vice chairman & CEO, Suven Life Sciences Ltd; Dr Arvinda Babu, vice-president, head - Operations Wellquest Clinical Research; Dr Ajoy Kumar, chief operating officer Neeman Medical International; N Srinivasan, diretor general, Confederation of Indian Industry, Dr Arun Bhatt, president, ClinInvent Research; Dr V Satyanarayana, managing director, Sipra Labs.

Dr RN Chowdhury, senior counselor, CII, is the executive secretary.