Assocham is organizing a day-long seminar on "Clinical Trials: The Heart of Medical Science" on November 4, 2008 at Assocham House, New Delhi as a forum for capitalizing on the advantages India offers in this sector.

The conference will be held between 10 am and 6 pm. The focus area of the seminar will be HIV clinical trials, clinical trials in cancer, pharmacoepidemiology, computational methods in clinical research, clinical trials in cardiovascular diseases and diabetes and opportunities & challenges in clinical research.

The speakers in the seminar include government officials from all over the world, corporate heads, scientists, global visionaries, renowned doctors, leading venture capitalists, market research firms and key regulatory officials.

The speakers will deliberate on the role of government in clinical trials, overview of the Indian regulation, process for clinical trials and IPR issues. Other issues for discussion include ethics of clinical trials, identifying risks related to outsourcing clinical processes, recruitment of patients and investigators.

The seminar is being organised as an acknowledgement of the vast potential of drug research in India. There is a growing importance of India emerging as the preferred location for clinical trials, paving the way for significant contract research outsourcing business with a determined bid to attract the mega global drug research business to India worth $50 billion at present to transform India into an outsourcing superpower in clinical research.

Clinical trials are an indispensable part of the drug discovery process to ensure the safety and efficacy of any new drug. There is an upcoming business potential of clinical trials in India to generate revenue anywhere between $500 million and $1 billion by 2010.

The seminar provides this very forum to all the stakeholders to contribute their vision to secure India's position in the global market. The projected revenue of the clinical trials sector in India by 2010 is estimated to be $1 billion. To meet this target, it is essential that the doctors, researchers, scientists, pharmaceutical industry, CRO's and policy makers come together and brainstorm the possibilities: