India's new outsourcing remedy

Drug testing is now being outsourced by big pharmaceutical companies.

In Bombay, India Mr Ginde is working in his lab analysing patient data so that
other pharmaceutical companies can get products to market faster.

"An experienced clinical researcher who started his career with Eli Lilly, he is among a new breed of technicians responding to a global call for low-cost human drug trials at internationally regulated standards.

This is outsourcing with a twist.

The cheap “workers”, one of India’s main selling points, are not required to input data or answer phones, but to donate themselves to medical science by testing drugs."

Clinical research outsourcing (CRO) is "new" and fast growing industry worth $118 million.

The prediction is that CRO will be worth $380 million by 2010 as companies look to India to cut the cost of drug development.

"With costs ranging between $800 million and $1.2 billion from patenting to approval, reducing the length of expensive research means more time to sell the drug before the patent expires and it can be copied by others."

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