The Association of Indian Contract Research Organisations (ACRO) in association with Pharmaceutical Export Promotion Council (Pharmexcil) is organizing a round table conference on March 26 in Delhi to discuss the issues related to contract research and clinical trials in India. Senior health ministry and commerce ministry officials will be present in the conference.

The theme of the conference is "Destination India - Contract Research In Pharma & Health Care". Senior heatlh ministry officials including joint secretary Debasish Panda and DCGI Dr Surinder Singh are expected to participate in the conference. The issues that will be focussed in the conference included promotion of exports of contract/clinical research services, regulatory issues of Contract Research & manufacturing including those relating to DGFT, R&D projects and funding requirements by Indian CROs.

A large number of CEOs of contract research and clinical trials industry are expected to participate in the conference. The conference assumes significance as there is feeling in the industry that the country is losing its initial advantage in the contract research and clinical trials area to other countries, especially to China and Brazil, mainly due to bureaucratic delays and other procedural delays. The conference will take up this issue for discussion.

Since the country has no dearth of knowledge, there is a feeling that the government has to take some fresh initiative to encourage research and development to change the earlier slogan of go for generics to 'generics to brands'. As this requires huge amount of funds, the industry will ask the government to take the lead in this regard.