<p>Judgment of the National Green Tribunal in the matter of Shalbjit Singh Vs Punjab State Pollution Control Board & Others dated 21/11/2024.</p> <p>A letter petition dated November 5, 2022 was sent
DEBATE Eventually, the debate boils down to whether removing patent rights will lead to lower R&D in diseases that are important for patients in developing economies. Ranjit Shahani
Pfizer Inc, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, will soon initiate programmes to develop drugs specific to diseases in developing countries, such as India, moving away from its history of fo
With global pharma companies waking up to technology outsourcing services as a tool to reduce the time to market of their R&D harvest, Accenture is looking at expanding the scope and scale of its life
What do many pharmaceutical companies across the world do when the number of new molecules that get past human clinical trials and the regulatory approval process is in steady decline?
The International Partnership for Microbicides (IPM) has signed an agreement with pharmaceutical company Pfizer under which the pharma major will give IPM a royalty-free license to use maraviroc, its newly approved HIV treatment, as a microbicide for the prevention of HIV infection. Maraviroc is one of a new class of antiretroviral drugs which works to prevent HIV infection by preventing the virus from gaining entry into target cells. "The drug's safety and efficacy data as a therapeutic will speed its development as a microbicide. This agreement adds a promising new compound to IPM's pipeline allowing us to explore new ways to prevent infection,' Zeda Rosenberg, CEO of the IPM told The Hindu here on Wednesday. Microbicides are products, such as gels, films and rings that could be applied vaginally to prevent transmission of HIV during vaginal intercourse. IPM is also developing other delivery methods such as long-last vaginal rings that release drug gradually over time. Under this agreement, IPM would work to develop maraviroc as a vaginal microbicide with the right to develop, manufacture and distribute the microbicide in developing countries that would reduce the cost of the end product and make it accessible to women in the developing countries, Ms Rosenberg said. Trials continue Admitting that the first general of microbicides products did not seem to work well, Ms Rosengerg said the good news was that large scale efficacy trials for the second generation of microbicides were on, and if successful, would be available in the market in the next five years. Results from the second IPM dapivirine ring study have shown that the reservoir vaginal ring was safe and well tolerated by women after seven days of use. IPM has finalised a protocol for a placebo vaginal ring safety and acceptability study to be conducted in Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania. The study, initiated in early 2007, will include 200 female participants and will generate critical data on the needs and preference of women and their male partners, in preparation for the eventual introduction of and access to microbicides among user population.
Philippines recently ordered Novartis to pull out its anti-arthritis painkiller from the country. It is feared that the drug lumiracoxib, also sold as prexige, causes liver damage. The Bureau of Food
a patent dispute between pharma companies over a migrane drug in the us market has been settled out of court. Ranbaxy, one of the world's largest producers of generic drugs, announced through a
For years the global malaria effort has been asking for more resources.Now the field needs to figure out a systematic strategy for spending the money effectively.
With money now flowing in, the fight against malaria must shift from advocacy to getting results. (Editorial)
THE public-private partnership model is now catching up in the drug R&D as well. In a first-ofits-kind partnership, the Rs 3,000-crore Nicholas Piramal Group on Friday signed an agreement with department of biotechnology (DBT) to jointly screen for biomolecules from microbes. The project cost is Rs 25 crore, of which Rs 17.98 crore will be contributed by DBT and Rs 6.88 crore by Nicholas Piramal. About 7,000 isolates per month will be collected and sent to Nicholas for screening, which will amount to 2 lakh molecules in three years. Joint collection will be done by nine institutes under DST such as National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, National Centre for Cell Science, Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, National Institute of Oceanography, etc. This is the first project in which industry and academia will work together to screen such a large number of bacterial isolates. The screening will be done for anti-cancer, anti-infective, anti-diabetes and anti-inflammation properties. In addition to culture-dependent method, culture-independent approach will be adopted for a few samples. "The global antibiotic market is worth $25 billion and there's an immense opportunity to increase the share of patents through the discovery of newer molecules. The partnership will eventually help us develop cheaper drugs,' said Union minister for science & technology Kapil Sibal.
