Leading clinical services

Dr Ferzaan Engineer, chief executive officer, Quintiles Research (India) Private Limited (which is a large contract research organization conducting clinical tri­als) received the BioServices Company of the Year 2004 award from E. Abraham Mathew, chief editor, BioSpectrum. Speaking at a panel discussion prior to the award presentation, Engineer said:

"In the last seven years, we have been seeing increasing interest in clinical trials and a lot of international work has been coming to India. Particularly in the last one or two years, we have seen a strategic shift (of) clinical work being moved to relatively new geographies and India is one of the most important geogra­phies. I am concerned that our regulatory infrastructure may not catch up as quickly as one would like... we need to come up with a single window (regulatory) system which is fast, transparent, efficient and science-based, with a pace and vigor to make us globally competitive and meet expectations of public trust.”

Dr Narges Mahaluxmivala is president, Clinical Develop­ment Services, Quintiles Research (India), a leader in the clinical research segment in the country, with experience in over 90 clinical studies involving more than 600 sites and 13,000 pa­tients. "Regulatory authorities in the US and in Europe are ac­cepting data which have a substantial proportion from India and three trials conducted by us solely in India have been accepted by the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) as part of a larger program... Clinical research in India is at a relatively nascent stage, but the potential for growth is enormous in all aspects,” Mahaluxmivala told BioSpec­trum which has listed Quintiles Research (India) among its Top 20 companies. Quintiles has offices in Ahmedabad, Bombay and Bangalore.