The Apollo hospital group is planning to strengthen its clinical research programmes and will soon come out with a roadmap of its research projects for the next five to ten years, developed by an expert group.

A 15-member taskforce comprising experts from Department of Science and Technology (DST), Indian Council for Medical Research, various universities and hospitals across the country are currently working on developing the projects and plans. The task force, constituted in March 2006, will submit the report by the end of July this year.

Meanwhile, Apollo has decided to merge Spectra Clinical Research Centre (SCRC), a site management unit under Apollo Group, with Apollo Hospital's Educational and Research Foundation (AHERF). The entire programmes of the foundation, including educational programmes, will be coordinated and facilitated from Chennai.

Focusing the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, government programmes and the projects from Universities both domestic and foreign, the foundation is planning to undertake clinical research projects. The foundation will also attempt collaborative research, epidemiological studies, genomic studies and translational research, revealed Jayanthi Swaminathan, clinical project manager, AHERF.

The AHERF, with major thrust on academic projects including training programmes for research teams and students, has also plans to start a training course on Good Clinical Practice (GCP) guidelines, research methodology, bio-statistics and clinical research for the research students.

The foundation is in talk with foreign companies to collaborate for setting up a laboratory for stem cell research and therapy. Though SCRC had signed an agreement with the Histostem Company Ltd of USA to work jointly in the area of stem cells, Apollo retracted from the project for various reasons, informed Jayanthi.

At present SCRC have offices at Chennai, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Ahmedabad, Kolkata and Madurai. Soon new centres will start at Vizag, Mysore and Bangalore. Plans are to establish around 15 centres by 2007.

The SCRC is conducting clinical research on cardiology, oncology, neurology, infectious disease, diabetes and endocrinology. An Ayurvedic drug research unit is also working under the head office of the centre at Chennai, she informed.