The ailing public sector drug company Indian Drugs and Pharmaceuticals Limited (IDPL) is in the process of revival, thanks to the interest shown by the present Government to turnaround its fortunes.
As part of the revival plan of IDPL, the government, which is working out a detailed revival package, has already released Rs 3 crore for redeveloping the three plants located at Rishikesh, Gurgaon and Chennai. The cleaning of the plants has commenced and would be made Schedule M compliant before April 2006. A sum of Rs 1 crore has been sanctioned and released for the Muzzafarpur plant. Further, the R&D centre of IDPL is to be developed as one of the best drug development centres of the country soon. National Institute of Pharmaceuticals and Education Research (NIPER) had recently been asked to take over the reigns of the IDPL R&D centre Hyderabad. The Central Government had also sanctioned Rs 1 crore for renovation and upkeep of the building and laboratory facilities in the R&D centre.
According to company sources, IDPL is planning to give priority for contract research in its revival plans. The company may enter into R&D collaborations on commercial basis with multinational clinical research organisations as part of its growth strategy. IDPL's R&D centre had turned the focus to several multinational companies. "Some of them have already visited our centre. Talks are soon to begin to identify areas of potential collaborative research agreements. If the R&D centre of IDPL had previously utilised its entire resources for its own purposes, the revamped company will make it a business proposition by taking up contract research," sources said. The IDPL may soon go for a major recruitment drive thereby inducting fresh talent into its research division.
It may be noted the R&D centre of IDPL had brought out three drug compounds a few years ago. While the compound (IDPH-8261) that has completed all the three pre-marketing phases of clinical trails was a potential NSAID drug with analgesic, anti-inflammatory and anti- arthritic properties, other two were a new triazolo benzothiazine derivative (IDPH-791) with pre-clinically confirmed central muscle relaxation potency and a triazole derivative (IDPH-85184) with proved anti-depressant properties.
The draft of pharma policy 2006 also gives hope for IDPL as it has emphasised to revive ailing PSU drug companies and to give preference for such companies in Government purchases.
A few months ago, the ministry of chemicals and fertilizers had decided to revive all the five units of IDPL located at Gurgaon, Chennai, Hyderabad, Muzaffarpur and Rishikesh in a phased manner as part of the Government's policy to ensure adequate role for PSUs in ensuring the availability of essential drugs at affordable prices. The previous government had decided to close down the loss making IDPL and most of the employees was given voluntary retirement. The work of revival of IDPL and its units would start from October 1 2005 and is expected to be completed within a period of two and a half years.
At present, three plants namely Gurgaon, Rishikesh and Chennai are producing medicines to a limited extent while the chemical plant at Muzaffarpur and bulk drug and formulation plant at Hyderabad were closed.