India Continues To Be Hub for Clinical Trials

Bangalore: Around 2,644 people died during the clinical trials of 475 new drugs in last seven years and merely 17 of the medicines were approved for marketing in India, said the Centre to the Supreme Court, reported Dhananjay Mahapatra for TNN.

Health secretary Keshav Desiraju said in an affidavit on behalf of the ministry of health and family welfare "Serious adverse events of deaths during the clinical trials during the said period were 2,644, out of which 80 deaths were found to be attributable to the clinical trials," as reported by TNN.

He added that "Around 11,972 serious adverse events (excluding death) were reported during the period from January 1, 2005 to June 30, 2012, out of which 506 events were found to be related to clinical trials."

It was also noted that drug trial of two drugs - Bayer's Rivaroxaban and Novartis's Aliskiren vs. Enalapril – made up for maximum number of deaths. Further, majority of the pharmaceutical companies, whose drugs were allowed for clinical trial on human beings were of foreign origin.

While clinical trials were to be banned for new drugs on humans, additional solicitor general Siddharth Luthra had pulled out the government from taking that decision and said that the health secretary would personally monitor implementation of the new stricter regime.

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