Reliance Clinical to offer research services

Reliance Clinical Research Services (RCRS), an initiative of Reliance Life Science and part of the Reliance group, is offering its services to global companies in oncology, burn wounds, cardiovascular, endocrinology, nephrology, gastroenterology, infectious diseases and vaccines. Currently, it is conducting studies for clients based in the US, UK and Middle East.

Mukesh Ambani, chairman and managing director, Reliance Industries in a press release said, "RCRS initiative is one aspect of Reliance's transformation from a manufacturing organisation to a knowledge and services driven enterprise."

RCRS expects to leverage the India advantage with its value proposition to deliver world-class clinical research services to global pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical advice and nutraceutical organisations, according to KV Subramaniam, senior executive vice-president, RIL.

Many healthcare companies, both large and small, find doing clinical trials in India an attractive option owing to cost effectiveness.

Besides prohibitive costs of clinical trials in the US and Europe, treatments for 'therapy- naive' patients who have not received any prior treatment are extremely time consuming.

In a press release, Reliance has pointed out that completing clinical drug trials and product development in India could be up to 75 per cent faster.

As per Rabo India Finance, although the average costs of doing Phase I/II/III drug trials in US are $20/50/100 million respectively, in India they are 50-60 per cent of the same.

In fact, in recent years, India has provided exemptions for import duties on clinical trials products and eliminated the procedural hurdles that were prevalent in the past, the release added.

RCRS provides services in project management, clinical operations, site management, biometrics (data management and biostatistics), medical affairs (pharmacovigilance and medical writing), regulatoy affairs, animal strudies, quality assuyrance, molecular diagnostics, ICH-GCP training, archival facility and drug storage and supplies.

"The value proposition of RCRS is built around a strong knowledge base and network in the medical domain, full service project planning, conduct and management of trials throughout India, in-house molecular diagnositc support and in-house Phase-I and pre-clinical toxicity ability", said Rajat Goyal, vice-president, RCRS.