Higher study today is about galvanising intellectual acumen into niche segments by introducing streams of specialisations.

A nouveau educational stream, addressing the need of qualified personnel in the sunrise industry of clinical research, is gaining currency in various institutes like ICRI which has introduced a post-graduate programme in clinical research.

Incessant economic change at all levels of the economy and the virtual disappearing of boundaries with globalisation have paved the pay for a large number of opportunities, which have also percolated to clinical research organisations (CRO) and led it to grow rapidly. Speaking on the demand shift in the clinical research scenario, Apurva Shah, group managing director,Veeda Clinical Research Pvt Ltd said, “Since the introduction of the patent regime, there has been a real shift towards CROs for clinical research.”

With this change in permutation and combination, there emerged the need for a qualified intellectual capital in the industry. “There is a need to bring in qualified personnel in this domain, as education pertinent to clinical research is at a nascent stage in India,” said Shruti Shukla, principal, ICRI Ahmedabad campus. According to Shukla, a degree in clinical research, a domain that calls for a sensitive approach, offers a lot of scope as a career prospect. On the role of institutes in providing guidance, Bhaswat Chakraborty, CRO Head, Cadila Pharma said, “Institutes are playing a crucial role in capacity building by enabling training. Research and practice are two different dimensions and the need of the hour is qualified investigators in this sector.”

Shah said, “There are a limited number of personnel with experience in developing new drugs. To tackle this paucity, Veeda CR has developed a training model wherein we send teams comprising four to six people to our UK unit for a thorough six month on the job training.”

The agenda of CROs and research institutes in the country at the moment is to ensure “a well designed clinical research that generates unbiased data, which is true and reliable. This data will be standing for its efficacy and be applicable to the patient population.”