India Places Welcome Mat For Biotech Businesses

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. "India is being taken seriously as a biotech outsourcing destination," said Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, who heads the Association of Biotech Led Enterprises, a grouping of India's biotechnology firms. For years, American and European companies have farmed out software development, engineering design and back-office work to firms in India and other countries that have lower wages and plenty of skilled workers. India 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, Mazumdar-Shaw said.