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 …
In the first week of December 2005, industry representatives, government officials, medical researchers and ngo delegates gathered in Delhi to find ways of "Living with trips'
artemisinin is the only drug available right now against Plasmodium falciparum, one of the malaria-causing pathogens. But its indiscriminate use may make the drug ineffectual, warns a study published in The Lancet (Vol 366, No 9501, December 3, 2005). Though the World Health Organization (who) recommends that artemisinin should be …
pharmaceuticals: The Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) regime was amended on December 6, 2005, to ensure patent protection for pharmaceutical products without, however, preventing people in poor countries from having access to medicines. But the production of cheaper varieties of protected drugs is subject to a cumbersome licensing procedure. …
the survival rate of hiv -infected people in India has increased, courtesy a 20-fold drop in the price of the anti-retroviral drugs in the country. This is suggested by a recent study by Y R Gaitonde of Centre for aids Research and Education (yrg care), a Chennai-based non-governmental organisation, and …
a mutated gene acquired from a harmless microbe can make a pathogenic bacterium drug resistant, claims a study at the Laboratory of Microbiology, Rockefeller University, New York. A team of scientists led by Alexander Tomasz, showed that bacteria fortify their cell walls using a protein produced by a gene called …
The World Health Organization recommends countries should stock enough Tamiflu (one of the two antiviral medicines for avian influenza) for a quarter of their population to ward off a possible outbreak. At a cost of US $60 per course of medication, this means the total spending could touch US $100 …
Canada refuses Sumas:The federal court of Canada ruled out the possibility of establishing a US-based power plant near the Canadian border. The company, Sumas Energy 2, proposed to source natural gas from Canada and build the plant in Sumas. It would cost US $400 million and generate 660 megawatts of …
An effort to regulate drug prices, through measures "other than price control', has been wasted. A task force (tf) set up as per Supreme Court (sc) recommendations to find ways to reduce prices of life-saving drugs, could not come up with many viable solutions. The tf had representatives from the …
the row over licensing of avian flu drug Tamiflu, has given a glimpse of how the issue of access to drugs will be handled, in future public health emergencies. The Swiss pharma major, Roche, which has properietory rights over the drugs, had finally agreed to talk with generic drug manufacturers …
cannabis (Cannabis sativa) is close to shedding its tainted image. An international team of scientists has discovered that certain chemicals found in the banished plant could increase the growth of new brain cells, just the opposite of what's believed. Scientists led by Xia Zhang, a neuropsychologist at University of Saskatchewan, …
rochevs. Ranbaxy. North vs. South. David vs. Goliath. This is how the media has presented the patent row between Roche and Indian generics manufacturers over the production of the drug Tamiflu, one of only two known treatments for avian flu, a disease that kills over half of the people it …
The contribution of antibiotics in enhancing the quality of human life is well known. However, there is now growing evidence that these drugs cause substantial harm. Researchers in many parts of the world have found that a large amount of antibiotics, used by humans and administered to animals, is excreted …
The Task Force on Recombinant Pharma sector, constituted in 2004 by the Union ministry of environment and forests (moef), submitted its final report to moef on September 13, 2005. The team was entrusted with recommending a transparent and streamlined regulatory mechanism for the use of Living Modified Organisms (lmos) in …
Good news for olive oil users: the oil mimics the effect of ibuprofen, a painkiller, says a US study (Nature, Vol 437, No 7055, Sep 1, 2005). Researchers led by Paul Breslin of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA) found 50 grammes or 4 tablespoons of good …
A compilation of the most representative single and multianalyte HPLC methods for the analysis of macrolide antibiotics published during the last two decades is presented in this paper. Its scope is the coverage of two main areas which require the determination of macrolide antibiotics at a low concentration level, i.e. …
As the monsoon arrives in Chhattisgarh, people living along the state's rivers start looking for the red velvet mite (Trombidium species). A tiny insect found in the wastelands, the red mite is prized as a source of medicine and sold as such in far off Benaras and other cities across …
Most people react to snakes with fear. Yet, very few snakes are lethal or even poisonous. India, in fact, has only five known varieties of deadly snakes: cobra, krait, Russell's viper and saw-scaled viper, and the recently discovered hump-nosed pit viper. A small brown snake with markings in lighter/darker brown, …
deep sea genetic resources need to be protected from excessive commercial exploitation for pharmaceutical or industrial applications, warns a report by the United Nations University
