After setting up its centre in Chennai recently, Bangalore-based Lotus Clinical Research Academy (LCRA) is looking at four new cities to set up its centre next year. The academy is planning to set up its centre in Ahmedabad, besides Delhi, Mumbai and Hyderabad.
"Gujarat is a hub of clinical research organisations (CROs) with the existence of 25-30 CROs in the state. We may decide to set up our centre in Ahmedabad by the first quarter of next year and even get operational by June 2010. We have just opened a centre in Chennai and if it works well, we will look at more locations like Hyderabad, Delhi and Mumbai also," said Sudhir Pai, managing director, LCRA.
Pai was in the city recently to approach with Ahmedabad-based CROs and pharma companies for training LCRA's students. "There are six top pharma companies and CROs in Ahmedabad, which are keen to train talents in the bioanalytical segment," Pai said.
LCRA recently started offering a degree program in pharmacovigilance. LCRA has tied up with national and international universities like Birla Institute of Technology, Harvard and Kansas to offer courses and training program in the field of clinical research.
LCRA is a joint venture between Lotus Labs and Labindia Instruments. Lotus Labs Pvt. Ltd. is a Bangalore based CRO wholly owned by Actavis hf, Iceland, Europe, a generic pharmaceutical company. In India, Lotus is engaged in conducting bioequivalence studies and clinical trials across the country. Till date, it has completed more than 1500+ bio-studies and several phase I to phase III trials.
Labindia, an ISO 9001:2000 company was established in 1982. The company is currently engaged in marketing and manufacturing, various analytical instruments, accessories and other products in the field of chemical, pharmaceutical, petrochemical, biotechnology industries.
