Clinical trials industry has seen a phenomenal increase in last ten years or so, and India has emerged as one of the foremost global destinations for clinical trials. Changed intellectual property regimen after WTO has been the prime mover of the phenomenon, and maximizing profits rather than serving any altruistic motives forms the main ideological underpinning of the rise of clinical trial industry in India. The paper examines the ideological underpinnings of the rise of clinical trials industry in the country in detail and how the ruling classes of India have tried to capitalize on this as a great economic opportunity. In the process the interests of India’s poor have been the main casualty. 1. Introduction There is a huge volume of literature available from across the world and from within the country that has commented on the phenomenal growth of the clinical trials industry, especially in the developing world. The available literature, at least from India, can be broadly categorized in two groups—one is those writings that have given greater play to societal concerns over the growth of clinical trials industry and the malpractices that it has engendered in the name of clinical research [1–6] and in the second group are the writings that have argued in favor of the growth of clinical trials industry as an economic opportunity as being crucial to the development of clinical research in the country and as such have deliberated on the ways and means to take best advantage of the opportunity [7–12]. This kind of an either “All Black” or “All White” conceptualization of the phenomenon tends to skirt aside the complexity of the issues at hand. For example, for all said and done, clinical trials remain central to “new drug development” and for this single reason there remains a need to develop an understanding of how to “get things right,” and to know the right way of doing things we ought to know ‘‘what precisely is wrong’’ with the clinical trials industry in India in the present form, rather than just elucidating the symptoms of the underlying pathology which come forth in the form of all the wrong reasons for which clinical trials have been in news in India. In the following passages we shall make an attempt to develop a reasoned understanding of the phenomenon of clinical trials as is unfolding in India such that the laity and the healthcare professionals can both become informed participants in the evolving debate over the growing clinical trials industry in the country. Even though it may appear unnecessary for those already having an idea of how
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