At the 45th annual DIA meeting at San Diego, USA, senior Indian officials showcased the Indian clinical trials industry and outlined the larger vision of making India the global hub for pharmaceutical innovation. The officials also shared the government initiatives of encouraging public private partnership and investment in capacity building and infrastructure.

India, being the only country with eight Indian companies along with other India focused activities, was the highlight of the DIA meeting where 'Theme India', an initiative by FICCI, dominated the entire proceedings.

Marie Dray, president DIA during her meeting with Ashok Kumar, secretary, Department of Pharmaceuticals, at the India pavilion thanked the Indian government for choosing the DIA annual meeting for showcasing the Indian clinical trials industry, and extended an invitation to the next years' programme.

Earlier at the India Evening Dinner Reception on June 23 in San Marriott Hotel, Ashok Kumar unveiled the FICCI-E&Y study titled 'The Glorious Metamorphosis - Compelling reasons for doing clinical research in India'.

Addressing the 100 plus attendees at this reception, the secretary outlined the larger vision of making India the global hub for pharmaceutical innovation, and shared the government initiatives of encouraging public private partnership and investment in capacity building and infrastructure.

He pointed out the advantages India offered in conducting clinical research projects and informed the audience about the NIPER initiative for capacity building for the industry. Bruce Ross, from US FDA, who would be shortly taking over as Country Director in India shared details about the collaborative training programmes that have been initiated for clinical trial oversight audit in India.

The discussion that followed the address of the secretary, featured panelists from Diagnosearch, Excel Life sciences, ICRI, and TCS representing the Indian industry and veterans like Dr Allan Weinstein, Dr Kurt Pfister and Barb Geiger.

The panelists deliberated on how the Indian Industry has changed and evolved over the years to be globally competent and competitive and the issues that need attention. Dr Weinstein who conducted the initial trials of Lilly in India more than a decade ago termed the evolution as transformation as against metamorphosis, in view of the short time in which the industry has grown and in known to be complying with GCP guidelines.

The finale of the India focus activities was the India focus session in the DIA conference on June 24 titled 'Global Clinical Trials- Destination India'. The speakers in this session included secretary Ashok Kumar, Dr TS Rao, advisor DBT, Dr Vasudeo Ginde, CEO Diagnosearch and Bishakha Bhattacharya of Ficci.

The secretary shared the vision of India becoming a hub for clinical trials as an extension of the larger vision of excellence in pharma innovation. He highlighted the critical role of clinical research and its vital link to the drug discovery process. Dr TS Rao gave an overview of the different initiatives that the DBT had taken for drug and vaccine development and how the department was involved in capacity building. Dr Ginde traced the journey of the industry from 1995 to today. According to him urban India today has a better doctor to patient ratio which is better than that the developed nations. Today India does more trials than East European countries, Australia, Japan etc, he added.