Preparation of a collaborative research project proposal to study ethical issues in clinical trials in India. (360G-Wellcome-090240_Z_09_Z)

My visit to the University of Edinburgh, in meetings with the scholars/investigators there, would exchange information on the following: (a) Our preliminary data analysis on clinical trial registries to understand the number and spread of clinical trials in India, and if possible, two other countries in the South East Asia, (b) Preliminary data analysis of number of Contract Research Organisations in India, the number and type of clinical trials they are involved in, the volumeof their business and content analysis of the publicly available methods used by them to attract business from the Global and India pharmaceutical companies. (c) To discuss the regulatory frame work for clinical trials in India with focus on the resources available at the office of the Drugs Controller Generalof India and its branches and the functioning of the Institutional Ethics Committees. The meeting and the discussions would help us in formulating research questions and methodology to study clinical trials in India. The research we are planning would be multi-disciplinary with participation of social scientists (anthropology, economics) and public health experts.