Apr 27,2024
New Delhi: The ICMR has planned to expand its Indian Clinical Trial and Education Network (INTENT) and invited tenders from public and private medical research institutes for coordinating regulatory clinical trials for drugs and devices. These expressions of interest would help in the growth of the national network, which encompasses 47 institutes that include public and private medical colleges, hospitals, and research institutes including the ICMR institutes.
The ICMR established INTENT, a network of medical colleges and research institutes, with an overarching goal of providing evidence-based, and culturally sensitive solutions to health issues of national priorities by conducting large, decisive, regulation compliant clinical trials.
This network is invested in providing an end-to-end solution for clinical trials for the Indian researchers.
“The ICMR now plans to expand the national network and accordingly invites expressions of interest (EOI) from public and private medical research institutes in India to contribute to the INTENT activities,” an official document said.
The broad objectives of the network are to generate high quality evidence by conducting and coordinating hospital-based and community-based trials in the diseases or health conditions of public health importance in India.
The aim is also to guide health policies and informed management practices based on the evidence generated and build capacity of clinical researchers in India for the planning, conduct, analysis and scientific dissemination of the clinical trials, the document stated.
The INTENT proposes to co-ordinate regulatory clinical trials or clinical investigations for drugs, devices, vaccines, biologics developed or co-developed with academia, start-ups or industry that address the national health priorities.
Additionally, trials that are planned through inter-ministerial collaborations may also be conducted by INTENT.
The INTENT is being coordinated by Clinical Studies and Trials Unit (CSTU) under Division of Development Research at ICMR, Delhi.
The selected centres from the EOI applicants will have the privilege of first preference as sites in case of trials conducted under the ambit of INTENT.
Source: Healthworld