To give a boost to excellence in scientific and technical education and research in healthcare and pharmaceutical development, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi is planning to start a Pharmaceutical Technology Centre.
The setting up of the Centre, which will be unique with respect to its focus and objectives, is important as quality and affordability of healthcare have become major pressing needs of the modern times. The significance is even greater for India due to its population, poor sanitation conditions and low affordability.
The Centre will come into existence in a year or so. According to the Prof Anurag Rathore, Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Delhi, this Centre is aiming to facilitate interdisciplinary research and academia-industry collaboration and thereby create products and technology solutions for the pharmaceutical industry. Since the focus of the Centre will be on industry oriented projects, it will be relatively easy for the students to transition into successful career in industry after working in the Centre.
The Centre will focus on five key aspects. First, drug discovery group which will focus on both discovery of novel molecules (both small molecule and biotech) that address unmet medical needs as well as create generic versions of existing therapies that are cost-prohibitive to the common man. Secondly, process development and commercialisation group which will focus on creating efficient processes that can enable the necessary production of the molecules discovered in the Centre as well as provide expertise in other areas that are critical for commercialization of pharmaceutical therapies.
Thirdly, drug characterization group which will focus on creating capabilities for analytical characterisation of pharmaceutical products. Fourthly, drug delivery group which will focus on creating delivery systems that are more cost-efficient and/or effective than what exist in the market in term of release characteristics using drugs developed at the Centre or drugs existing in the market. Lastly, diagnostics group which will focus on creating novel and/or affordable theranostic solutions to serve the healthcare industry.
Particularly, more than 20 faculty members across multiple departments have expressed interest in participating in the Centre. Keeping up with the breadth of activities in the Centre, students of varying backgrounds and experience will join the Centre. Prof Rathore stressed that students are expected to come from disciplines like biochemistry, microbiology, chemical engineering, pharmacy, biomedical engineering, and chemistry.
Some of the key objectives of the Centre will include: providing a platform to facilitate interdisciplinary research, provide “end to end solutions” that address the healthcare needs of the society, collaborate with the pharmaceutical industry and facilitate productive partnerships, and to build a trained human resource base for the pharmaceutical industry.