The new year has hit the ground running hard and many colleagues are just trying to hang on. The good news is that though we are still in the midst of some hard times, we are starting to see an upturn in movement of money, new clinical programs under development, and jobs. Enrollment is up in the UC Santa Cruz certificate programs where I have taught for the last 10 years and in honer of the winter term just getting underway, I posted a picture from my most recent trip to India of a woman walking her children to the school bus in Bangalore.
The conference season is in full swing. I just came back from the Indian Society for Clinical Research's excellent 3rd annual national conference at the Hotel Leela Kempinski in Bangalore. Attended by 500 participants from all over India and beyond, the conference featured many of the most influential people in the Indian clinical research field as well as many young CRAs and project managers, and it was a fantastic opportunity to listen and learn from the people who know the region best.
This week I will be attending and presenting at Outsourcing in Clinical Trials West Coast in San Francisco, on the topic of Offshoring to Emerging Countries: Navigating Uncertain Waters. I gave a similar talk last week as an advance for the Partnerships in Clinical Trials event to be held in Orlando in April. I'm told a podcast of last week's talk is forthcoming and I will make it available to anyone who contacts me for it. This week I am also presenting in a webinar entitled Biotech and the Global Marketplace for the US Commercial Service. My task is to discuss clinical trials in emerging markets and opportunities for US biotech companies to enter into co-development projects with sister companies in these regions.
My partner and I were recently featured in a blog post over at goBalto.com about the Indian clinical trial market- see it here.
I receive regular updates from Audrey Erbes, who is a faculty colleague of mine at UC Santa Cruz extension and teaches in the biosciences certificate program. I took her 2 day course on business development and highly recommend it. Here is her excellent blog where she freely shares huge amounts of information from her network including job postings with students and colleagues alike. Highly worth subscribing to in your reader.
2010 represents my 30th year in the clinical research field. Next year I will have to rename my blog to '3 Decades, Full Stop'.
