Order of the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Network of People Living With HIV/AIDS & Others Vs Union of India & Others dated 24/02/2025. The Supreme Court (SC), February 24, 2025 has directed all states to file their affidavits addressing concerns raised about antiretroviral therapy (ART) drugs …
Anaemia is a widespread condition in India. The biggest cause is malnourishment and iron-poor diets. Though the best remedy is a good diet, anaemia has spawned a huge market for iron supplements, usually of the expensive variety (see box: Market slice). A 2006 market survey by the Drug Action Forum-Karnataka …
Drug Action Forum-Karnataka has estimated the share of iron supplements in the total pharmaceuticals market. Six retail chemists in Ranebennur, a taluka in Karnataka's Haveri district, were requested to provide figures for sales of preparations containing iron for a two-month period in December 2005-February 2006. It was found to range …
Indian drug manufacturer Ranbaxy is contesting us multinational Pfizer in 17 countries. It is filing for the right to manufacture generic versions of the world's bestselling drug Lipitor and a combination drug Caduet, in the us. But it hasn't really struck a blow for the generic pharma industry: Ranbaxy remains …
The Ranbaxy-Pfizer dispute involves three drugs:Lipitor, Caduet and Norvasc. The last named is a blood pressure drug. Pfizer's patent over it was annulled recently ending a lucrative monopoly: Norvasc, Pfizer's second biggest selling drug, earned the company about US$5 billion in sales in 2006. But the company combined one of …
A pill can now help cows stop burping and thereby cut a significant amount of methane emissions into the atmosphere and contribute to checking global warming. Known as bolus, the plant-based pill has been developed by scientists from the University of Hohenheim, Germany, and can reduce the amount of methane …
Alang's woes On March 12, 2007, the Supreme Court adjourned the hearing of a case against the Norwegian asbestos-laden ship Blue Lady for another six weeks. On March 8, an intervening petition was filed in the ongoing case by sarpanchs from 12 villages around the Alang-Sosiya shipbreaking yard. They argued …
Vulture conservation in India is in a state of flux. The only point that researchers agree on is that it is absolutely vital but there is no consensus on how to go about it. There is a dispute regarding vulture censuses, the causes for their decline and even the measures …
One doesn't really expect carrion scavengers to be gastronomes. So, a restaurant for vultures does seem something of an oddball. But the vulture restaurant at Kawasoti, Nawalaparasi district, some 100 km from Kathmandu, provides vultures with something that's become a rarity for them: carcasses cleaned of diclofenac residues. Environmentalists say …
"Shortage of food is not killing vultures, it is diclofenac. It caused more than 95 per cent decline in vulture population during the last 15 years. This terrible situation can arise even if five out off 1,000 carcasses are contaminated with diclofenac,' says ornithologist Hem Sagar Baral. Apart from running …
thailand's capital Bangkok witnessed protests outside the office of us multinational Abbott Laboratories on March 14, 2007. A day before, the company had withdrawn applications to register seven new formulations including a new version of the anti-hiv-drug Kaletra. It claimed the Thai government had violated international patent laws by permitting …
lymphatic filariasis, commonly known as elephantiasis, has long been a major cause of acute and chronic morbidity among people in tropical and subtropical areas of Asia, Africa, the western Pacific and some parts of the Americas. Of the estimated 128 million cases of lymphatic filariasis, 91 per cent are caused …
on february 28, 2007, the us department of agriculture (usda) gave preliminary draft approval to a biotech company to plant genetically modified rice to produce human proteins, amidst fears about its risk to human health. If the project, proposed by California-based Ventria Biosciences, gets final approval it will be the …
The separation of streptomycin and its derivative dihydrostreptomycin using ion-pair liquid chromatography is proposed. The method is based on the use of a new stationary phase based on a ligand with amide groups and the endcapping of trimethylsilyl which avoids the appearance of tailed peaks. The isocratic mobile phase consisted …
The Indian Council of Medical Research (icmr) has recently purchased access rights to contents published in the uk-based Cochrane library's website. It contains evidence to assist decision-making related to healthcare, including reviews, clinical trials and results of research worldwide. The contract is for three years and the database is available …
the report of the Technical Expert Group headed by R A Mashelkar, set up to report on aspects of the patent law in the context of the international regime of intellectual property rights, has been withdrawn. The report was to have been used in a case filed by multinational pharmaceutical …
Indira Hiriway of the Centre for Development Alternatives in Ahmedabad has recently produced a working paper on the valuation of mangroves in Gujarat. It provides a comprehensive analysis of the uses and potential of mangroves, their value and the cost of their replacement. She explains they have importance at the …
FEW businessmen would spend a lot of time talking about a harmless virus. But this virus, called a phage, kills bacteria that are dangerous to human beings. You could use it as a drug, if we knew how to tame it and get it to the right place. Some institutions …
disabling protein: Antibiotics can now treat pneumonic plague. The protein that causes the rapid spread of the ailment, has been identified. Disabling the protein, called plasminogen activator, can control the spread and give time to physicians to treat. The attack is significantly slowed down because it cannot use the key …
Angering global drug giants, Thailand's interim regime decided to issue more compulsory licences for import and production of generic HIV/AIDS drugs on February 12, 2007. The rising cost of AIDS treatment was cited as the reason. This will allow domestic firms to produce generic versions of drugs. The first licence …
