I am referring to FDA trials, in the US, which can take over a decade and cost 8- or 9-figure dollar sums. These are required before the drug even comes to market.
US clinical trials often involve a second, parallel clinical trial in India, because it's easy to find lots of poor patients in desperate need of treatment. I think that, at least in some cases, this probably works out well for everyone except the control group.
But if poor Indian patients are going to test these drugs, the GP can certainly argue that poor Indian patients should be able to afford them.
They cannot afford clinical trials in developed countries, so they turn to poorer countries.
India is one of the biggest hub for most of the pharma's clinical trials due to huge poor population. The rules are lax and they take advantage of it. Lot of people die and many turn paralyzed or disabled permanently due to drug's unknown side-effect.
These corrupt pharma companies want to use India as it's test-bed but want to sell the drugs tested here at an abysmal high price such that it is even out of my reach (even though I am well off).
