D2L Pharma Research Solutions, an end to end pharma service provider is investing Rs 40 lakh to set up a new facility in Bangalore. The funds have been sourced through internal accruals. The new facility includes a corporate office of 4,000 sq feet facility located at Whitefield, Bangalore for consultancy and clinical research teams to operate.

The company, which started its operations in early July 2007 as a multi-site, multi-specialty Site Management Office (SMO) is now offering DSS (decision support services) and MSS (marketing support services).

DSS provides consulting services to pharma/biotech companies while MSS assists pharmaceutical marketing team in solving the brand management challenges. "This is a measure of its success through total client satisfaction and global excellence in the nascent market," stated Dr Sashi Kiran, managing director, D2L Pharma Research Solutions and Surgical Gastroenterologist.

The business of SMO is the fastest growing for the company. Currently, there are six trials going on. The trials include nasal spray for respiratory medicine at 11 locations in the country. The study for Type 2 diabetes is on at 4 sites. Cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and vaccines trials are going on at 10, 5 and 6 sites respectively.

Among the future SMO projects on the cards is a neurology study for a stroke drug which will be carried out only in the South India at five sites.

D2L only focuses on increasing its presence in the Tier II and Tier III cities. India is now recognised as a clinical trial destination and increasing number of human studies are going on at smaller and medium sized towns and district headquarters across the country including Indore, Pondicherry, Kochi, Trichy, Bhopal, Madurai, Vijayawada, Coimbatore and Kurnool.

With the increasing awareness on disease conditions, there is a regular access by the patients to hospitals for diagnosis and treatment. Supporting patient availability is an increasing interest among doctors to take on clinical trials. In such a situation, the human studies at these locations are faster. The company has been already associated with several global trials including ENT, diabetes, cancer and cardiology.

The company was founded by Dr Sashi Kiran Surgical Gastroenterologist, Deepak H and Shekhar Gupta. Today the strength of the company is 40. The availability of doctors trained to conduct clinical trails is estimated at a mere 1,000. D2L had also been associated to train the medical professionals in the ICH-GCP guidelines.

The clinical trial business in the country is projected to generate $2billion by 2010. There are 644 global trials going on in India with many more from the national pharma sector.