India missed the great opportunity in partnering the human genome project and thereby has the disadvantage in acquiring the right type of database, stated President of India Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam.
Nevertheless, the Indian biomedical community can take the initiative to become a working partner in the proteomics project of gene characterization. Proteomics is logical extension of genomics that understands basic biological processes critical to normal cellular functions and development of diseases. Scientists in India can exploit these components as targets in the development of new methods to prevent or treat diseases, stated President Kalam in his address at the Biocon Park in Bangalore.
The national programme on proteomics has to be accelerated with partnership from industries and R&D laboratories, which must be pursued as a mission mode project. The proteomics resulting into a gene chip can become the future diagnosis and treatment regime for many diseases. The genetic characterization leads to forecast and diagnosis of the disease for adopting suitable preventive and curative measures in the form of diagnostic system and drugs.
President Kalam recalled his visit to the Dr K.M. Cherian's International Centre for Biomedical Sciences and Technology (Research & Applications) at Chennai, which is working with gene chip used for finding the existence of genetic diseases including coronary artery diseases or neuro defect in the embryo during certain stages of pregnancy. He called upon scientists at Biocon research to maximize the application of medical bio-informatics for diagnostics and determination of treatment regime.
President Kalam stated "Nanotechnology is knocking at our doors, which has wider applications in structure, electronics, and healthcare. Nano-bio medical sensors will play a major role in glucose detection and Endoscopic implants. Nanotechnological application to drug delivery system will revolutionize the health-care," he said.
The world market of nanobiotechnology is expected to be with billions of dollars by 2012. Patents are being filed by Dr Maitra of Delhi University especially in the area of drug delivery system. Companies like Biocon could explore nanotechnology application and if necessary create national and global partnership to get strategic leadership in this emerging area.
Presently, the Indian Pharma industry is contributing to a production of $ 8 billion worth drugs against the total world production $ 600 billion including $ 75 billion of biotech products. President Kalam suggested the efforts should be made to evolve India as a leader in drug production and should target to produce 20 per cent of the global production. "India has the core competence to produce cost effective drugs," he noted.
Competitiveness is the single factor that will help India transform into a developed nation. Genetic medicines would be the future health care system, after the characterization of Chromosome one, which has maximum genes. In this regard, the new challenges for companies like Biocon would be to participate in developing drugs infectious diseases like HIV.