Bioethics activities in India

The Indian Council of Medical Research formulates, coordinates and promotes biomedical research in India. In 1980, they formulated the first national ethical guidelines. They offer a number of different training programmes, from 1 day to 6 months. The council is developing a core curriculum for teaching bioethics, which would be applied uniformly in medical schools throughout the country. Drug development and ethics is also important in India, particularly now that the local pharmaceutical industry is expanding and so many drugs trials are outsourced to the country. The council is also very active in encouraging the development of ethics review committees.