
International Clinical Trials Day Celebration 2023
On the eve of International Clinical Trials Day, which is celebrated every year on May 20, we joined forces with CSIR-Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), the country’s leading drug discovery institute, to conduct a symposium titled, “Patient Engagement: Benchmark in Clinical Trials.”
The symposium that was held on May 19 at CDRI premises in Lucknow brought together experts from the field of clinical research and patient engagement groups to explore ways to include more patient voices in the design of clinical trials because as a nonprofit R&D organization we believe in outcomes that matter most to patients. We’re also committed to having inclusive clinical trials that are adequately representative of populations that we’re trying to serve. The retention and active participation of participants in clinical research greatly depend on the trust they have in such studies, said Dr Radha Rangarajan, Director CSIR-CDRI. She shared her personal experience as a participant in a clinical trial and emphasized the need for a more patient-centric approach to engage patients in these trials.
Dr. Kavita Singh, Director of DNDi, discussed the patient engagement experience of DNDi in conducting kala azar clinical trials in Bihar. ‘’Clinical trials are typically conducted in urban areas or well-established hospitals with educated populations. However, conducting trials in rural areas of Bihar posed challenges, and DNDi developed trials that took into account the local context, the vulnerability of the population, and the sociocultural aspects of the region, she added.
Dr. J.S. Srivastava, Professor and Head of the Psychiatry Department at Hind Institute of Medical Sciences and former Chief Scientist at CSIR-CDRI, discussed the concept of adopting a Patient-Centric Approach for Clinical Trials. However, Dr. Pooja Sharma, Founder CEO of APAR Health delivered her talk on Patient Engagement: Putting Patients First and said, Clinical research has always claimed to prioritize patients, but now it is crucial for it to truly centre around patients.