Drug Firms Move Biotech Work to India

[Nambe]

BANGALORE, India (AP)

Drug makers in the United States and Europe are increasingly moving clinical trials and research work to India, which helped Indian firms earn $54 million in revenue in the last fiscal year, a trade body said Wednesday. ..

ndia earns about $12.5 billion annually from information technology outsourcing and revenues are growing at 30 percent per year. More than half of Fortune 500 firms outsource some part of their work to India.

The practice of passing on jobs in drug development research, analysis of research data and clinical trials to India is a new but growing trend, Shaw said.

Revenue from work outsourced by Western companies accounted for more than 13 percent of India's biotechnology exports of $395 million in the year that ended March 31. ..

[realFedUp]

1. Plenty of stem cells....

in other countries. Putting handcuffs on
science here just moves it somewhere else.
Good going Bushies.

[BlueEyedSon]

2. It would be cheaper there anyway....

[realFedUp]

3. Cheaper in the long run?

Losing scientific jobs isn't cheaper for this country
and I really doubt that the prices of meds for this
country will go down because of it.

[Trillo]

5. They would IF 'citizens' were allowed to import medicines

sold in India directly, without the addition of more middlemen.

[BlueEyedSon]

8. The labor is cheaper. Just like the labor that makes the $9 shirts at

Wal-Mart.

[NJCher]

4. this is bad for my state

Most pharmaceutical companies have headquarters here in the Garden State.


Cher

[BlueEyedSon]

9. They will never move the exec offices. Can you imaging the

millionaire CEOs living in India? Never happen.

They'll just move the job functions that can be done cheaper there. Profits will go up, stock values will go up, the jerks that made the decision to offshore will be heros to the stockholders.

[whistle]

6. Uhmmm, those dollar savings just keep piling up....

...think of it by using 1,500 untouchables per clinical trial who can be paid pennies on the dollar for the same tests that would run hundreds of dollars each for American participants,plus the technicians salaries are 80% to 90% cheaper there than here, these tests can be made at little or no cost to the companies involved. Also, if something goes seriously wrong with the trials, and participants are injured, the drug companies have complete immunity from lawsuits. They just fix the drugs, try again and again until they get the results they are looking for, with no repercussions from the fascist government in power in India.

It's win/win/win, the drug companies win by reducing R&D costs, India wins by importing more American jobs to employ their middle class, stock holders win by seeing their stock prices sky-rocket. As for American workers who are also the consumers, well we just keep borrowing on our credit cards and waiting for the next round of republican tax reductions to kick in as those dollars that the wealthy keep spending trickle down all over us.:wow:

[realFedUp]

7. The US should stop giving R&D to US PharmaSuits

that move their jobs out of country.

[napi21]

10. Can I play devils advocate for a minute?

I was in a doctor's office last week and read a magazine article about how difficult it is for the drug companies to find people to volunteer for their required test studies. Even though this would be the final testing stage for these drugs, and are very closely monitored, most people just don't want to do it. They even had a list of contact sites for the different programs, and said there were studies available for amost every malady you can think of.

If this is true, do you think these companies have a valid reason to go to some foreign country where the volunteers are more available?