The Indian Contract Research Organisations have formed an association under the aegis of Confederation of Indian Industry and has registered as a Society on February 2, 2005 with registration number 51470 in the name of 'Association of Contract Research Organisations' (ACRO). The formation of this Association was formally announced on Saturday at Hyderabad.

The Association will strive to share best practices, identify and establish bench marks, help each other in building global standards, enable global acceptance of data, promote 'India' brand services in the field of contract research / services, provide common platforms worldwide for exposure, promotion and recognition.

Dr SP Vasireddi, CMD of Vimta Labs (Hyderabad) has been chosen as the founder chairman; Vidur Kaushik, CEO of SRL Ranbaxy, Clinical Reference Laboratories (New Delhi) as the vice-chairman; and Dr Arvind Lal, managing director of Dr Lal Pathlabs Private Ltd (New Delhi) as the secretary of the association.

Other members of the executive council include Dr Sumedha Sahni, director-Operations and Clinical Trials, Specialty Ranbaxy Ltd (Mumbai); Dr Ashish Kumar Dasgupta, director, Lamda Therapeutic Research (Ahmedabad), Dr Satish Chander Bhatia, former president, Wellquest Clinical Research (Mumbai); and N Srinivasan, CII (New Delhi).

The executive council is expecting a membership of about 100 CROs in the near future represented from varied fields of CROs, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical research organizations, bio-informatics companies, data management organizations, site management organizations, pre-clinical toxicology laboratories etc.

ACRO will be operating its secretariat from CII, Gurgaon and is in the process of drawing a road map for future course of action. It is planning to conduct its first conclave in September 2005.