Unveiled Clinical Trials For Drugs: Exploring Research for New Treatments

“New drug” means, (i) a drug, including active pharmaceutical ingredient or phytopharmaceutical drug, which has not been used in the country to any significant extent, except in accordance with the provisions of the Act and the rules made thereunder, as per conditions specified in the labelling thereof and has not been approved as safe and efficacious by the Central Licencing Authority with respect to its claims; or (ii) a drug approved by the Central Licencing Authority for certain claims and proposed to be marketed with modified or new claims including indication, route of administration, dosage and dosage form; or (iii) a fixed dose combination of two or more drugs, approved separately for certain claims and proposed to be combined for the first time in a fixed ratio, or where the ratio of ingredients in an approved combination is proposed to be changed with certain claims including indication, route of administration, dosage and dosage form; or (iv) a modified or sustained release form of a drug or novel drug delivery system of any drug approved by the Central Licencing Authority; or (v) a vaccine, recombinant Deoxyribonucleic Acid (r-DNA) derived product, living modified organism, monoclonal anti-body, stem cell derived product, gene therapeutic product or xenografts, intended to be used as drug; Explanation: The drugs, other than drugs referred to in sub-clauses (iv) and (v), shall continue to be new drugs for a period of four years from the date of their permission granted by the Central Licencing Authority and the drugs referred to in sub-clauses (iv) and (v) shall always be deemed to be new drugs;

A subsequent new drug means a drug approved by the Central Licencing Authority for certain claims and proposed to be marketed with modified or new claims including indication, route of administration, dosage and dosage form. A subsequent new drug also includes a new drug already approved in the country.

In general, the timeline for disposal of an application for conduct of clinical trial study is 90 working days from the date of receipt of application. However, if the drug is discovered in India or research and development of the drug are being done in India and also the drug is proposed to be manufactured and marketed in India then the timeline for disposal of an application for conduct of such clinical study is 30 working days from the date of receipt of application. In such case, if no response is issued by the CDSCO within 30 working days, the clinical trial will be considered to be deemed approved.

Minimum of seven members from medical, non-medical, scientific and non-scientific areas with at least, one lay person; one woman member; one legal expert; one independent member from any other related field such as social scientist or representative of non-governmental voluntary agency or philosopher or ethicist or theologian. At least 50% of members not affiliated with the institute or organization in which EC is constituted. Every member of the EC shall be required to undergo such training and development programs.

An application for grant of permission to conduct clinical trial of new drug or investigational new drug shall be made in Form CT-04. The application should be accompanied by the necessary documents as specified under Second Schedule along with the fees as specified under Sixth Schedule of the NDs & CTs Rules, 2019. Order issued by CDSCO on 10th Apr 2019, Form CT-04 (and other Forms) can be manually completed and uploaded in SUGAM, till all the new Forms are integrated into the online submission portal.

No. For new drug substances discovered or developed in countries other than India, Phase I data should be submitted along with the application. After submission of Phase I data generated outside India to the Central Licensing Authority, permission may be granted to repeat Phase I trials or to conduct Phase II trials and subsequently Phase III trial concurrently with other global trials for that drug.

As per the new provision of post-submission meetings, if the applicant desires to seek clarification in person in respect of pending application and queries related thereto, the applicant may make an application for a post-submission meeting with the officer designated by the Central Licencing Authority within a period of fifteen days from the date the query was received for seeking guidance with regards to the queries concerning pending application.

The requirement of non-clinical and clinical data may be relaxed, abbreviated, omitted or deferred under life threatening or serious disease conditions or rare diseases and for drugs intended to be used in the diseases of special relevance to Indian scenario or unmet medical need in India, disaster or special defence use e.g. haemostatic and quick wound healing, enhancing oxygen carrying capacity, radiation safety, drugs for combating chemical, nuclear, biological infliction etc. However, such relaxation, abbreviations, omission or deferment of data will be evaluated on case-by-case basis depending on the nature of the new drugs, proposed indication, etc.

The application submitted to CLA for grant of permission to conduct clinical trial of a new drug discovered in India or research and development of the drug are being done in India and also the drug is proposed to be manufactured and marketed in India, such application shall be disposed by way of grant of permission or rejection or processed by way of communication to rectify any deficiency of the application, as the case may be, as specified in rule 22, by the CLA within a period of 30 working days from the date of the receipt of the application. If no communication has been received from the CLA to the applicant within the said period, the permission to conduct clinical trial shall be deemed to have been granted.