Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), Lucknow, is one among the highly rated biomedical research institutes of the country. The institute has the rare distinction of having developed 11 out of 16 new drugs that have been successfully commercialized in the country. With a mission to strengthen and advance the field of drug research in India, the institution has been engaged in the development of new drugs and diagnostics, cellular and molecular studies to understand disease processes and reproductive physiology, development of contraceptive agents and devices, systematic evaluation of medicinal properties of natural products, development of technology for drugs, intermediates and biologicals and dissemination of information in the field of drug research.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) of the Central Government had recently approved Rs 190 crore under the Xth Plan for shifting CDRI into a new campus with state-of-the-art facilities. The new look institute would be truly world class and would be perfectly operational within four years of the release of funds. Once the upgradation work is over, CDRI is expected to provide qualified and specialised trained scientific manpower and provide quality service in quantity for regulatory pharmacology/ toxicology, pharmacokinetics and metabolic studies to pharma industry.
It is known that the new facility has been envisaged with the vision to discover and develop new chemical entities in disease areas of national priority and life-style and ageing related disorders. The Research & Development laboratories in the new premises would conform to the current and emerging international standards. There would also be a flexible organisational structure comprising only three major Divisions viz. Biological Sciences, Chemical Sciences and Pre-clinical Sciences in place. Leadership positions at all levels will be merit based with an in-build stringent mechanism for assessment and monitoring of projects.
The institute has excellent facilities to carry out clinical trials in the country. It is capable of protocol development for phase I to phase IV clinical trials and human pharmacokinetic studies and have capabilities to undertake phase I clinical trials in healthy human volunteers, effective coordination and management of phase II & III clinical trials for efficacy evaluation in specified patient population.
The centre also possesses facilities needed to carry out research on microbial infection, technology development, regulatory toxicity and regulatory pharmacokinetics.