Clinical Research Institute (CRI) has invested Rs 2 crore to open its second facility in the country at Bangalore. The facility will be opened in mid April. The Bangalore centre will offer Postgraduate Diploma in Pharmacovigilance, for the first time in the country. Other courses are Post graduate diploma in clinical research and clinical data management.

The Bangalore centre will start its courses in April and the admissions will be open from March. The course will initially target candidates from the pharma and biotech industry along with medical, pharmacy and lifesciences background. The key reason to offer diploma in Pharmacovigilance is that with India is proving to be a much-sought after destination for phase II and III trials and therefore the need to detect, assess, understand and prevent adverse drug reaction is of paramount importance. Present industry personnel are not trained in this. We intend to fill the gap and give an edge to the students who enroll in this, stated Vijay Moza, chairman, Clinical Research Institute (India) Pvt. Ltd.

CRI, Mumbai which kicked off operations a year ago has 200 students being trained. It offers courses of one-year post graduate diploma in Clinical Data Management and clinical research.

"Currently, the demand far exceeds the supply for clinical research industry professionals. Around Rs 70,000 crore is spent globally every year on clinical trials. Clinical Research industry spells an opportunity of 50,000 jobs by 2010 in India alone and more than 250,000 jobs globally," said Dr S M Sapatnekar, dean of Clinical Research Institute.

A large portion of this demand for quality clinical research professionals in the country comes from Bangalore. About 80 clinical research organizations (CROs), site management organizations (SMOs), pharmaceutical companies and data management organizations (DMOs) operate from South India with Bangalore as one of the prime centres.

Pharmaceutical industry in India is growing at an annual rate of 11 per cent and clinical research industry registering 84 per cent growth. India with its diverse and large patient population and high quality and cost effective work force can be an adequate platform for the global clinical research industry.

"Within four months of our Mumbai centre operation, top organizations have shown keen interest for internship of CRI students. Besides clinical research education, CRI will also focus on developing management skills in its students. We are also targeting IT professionals, Moza added.

CRI has designed a unique LIFSP (Learning by Industry -Faculty -Student partnership) model that establishes a close relationship between the three entities involved in the process - the student, the faculty and the industry. The institute has specially designed an industry-driven curriculum with the learner's objectives in mind. The curriculum will be upgraded on a regular basis to enable students and practitioners to stay up-to-date with prevailing practices and technologies impacting Clinical Research Industry.