We at the MRCT Center, with our friends and colleagues, mourn the passing of Padma Shri Prof Ranjit Roy Chaudhury, announced on the morning of October 27, 2015.
Prof Roy Chaudhury was a visionary, mentor and friend, instrumental to medicine, health care delivery, medical education, drug regulation, and clinical research in India. He worked tirelessly to improve the clinical research enterprise in India, knowing that only with robust clinical research programs can India hope for the rapid availability of new medicines and treatments to the people of India. He was a leader at a time when leadership was essential, an enthusiast at a time of pessimism, and a consolidator at a time of dissonance. He greeted all with a calming smile and a warm, welcoming and earnest handshake that spoke inclusion and acceptance. He was quiet but incisive.
Many of the most significant reforms in the regulatory environment in India over the last few years were outlined in recommendations that emanated from the Ranjit Roy Chaudhury Expert Committee to Formulate Policy and Guidelines for Approval of New Drugs, Clinical Trials and Banning of Drugs, at the direction of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Those recommendations have largely been implemented, and have helped to create clinical research built on patient safety, quality and underlying scientific and ethical principles. His influence will be forever felt in the restoration of clinical research in India; the work is not finished, but his legacy is palpable. We owe it to him, and to the people of India, to ensure that new medicines and treatments, new diagnostics and therapeutics, are again available through trustworthy and robust clinical research functioning with appropriate regulatory oversight.
We have all lost a leader and friend in Prof Roy Chaudhury. We extend our heartfelt condolences to his family, to the clinical research community, and to the people of India.
Barbara E. Bierer, MD Mark Barnes, JD LLM Rebecca Li, PhD